Thy Rocks and Rills, Thy Woods and Templed Hills; National Parks, Ecotourism, and Sustainability One of the United States’ most valuable assets is also its most abundant – its huge swathes of untamed, open wilderness. Since the 2016 election, the United States Government has been putting more pressure on national parks to allow oil and gas extraction within the park, putting these parks’ pristine, untouched environments in jeopardy. Originally created in 1916 the National Park Service seeked to leave areas, as written in the original Organic Act, “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations” (“Rethinking National Parks for the 21st Century”). Since then, these parks have become a foundation of American culture, tourism, and environmental …show more content…
Travel and tourism makes up a large aspect of the modern economy, especially in first-world countries like the United States - it sets the cornerstone for the service industry and is a huge creator of wealth, both internationally and domestically. Much of the tourism industry is based on unsustainable practices which often have a huge impact on the local environment. With the increase of environmental awareness and activism within the last few decades, this unsustainability has lead to the emergence of an “alternative” form of tourism based on sustainable and eco-friendly practices, also referred to as “green” tourism or ecotourism. (Obenaus 21). Thanks to this new form of travel, tourists can experience nature and wildlife without creating unnecessary strain on the ecosystems they visit an important concern in a modern age driven by environmental consciousness. Beyond just visiting exotic locations sustainably, these ecotourists also engage with their environment and learn about preservation of nature and its importance. Ecotourism lets tourists interact with local communities and people. As a result, ecotourists both see the benefits of preserving natural beauty and the urgency of the situations in communities affected by climate change. While traveling and enjoying nature and leisure, these tourists learn about the modern world and the necessity of the same eco-friendly practices they are participating
Committee on Senate Energy and National Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. 3 June 2003: ESBCO. Mission Viejo Library., Mission Viejo, CA. 31 July 2005. http://web31.epnet.com/citation.
This aspect is “The Double-edged Sword of Ecotourism.” In this chapter, Stanford expresses the positives and negatives of ecotourism. Ecotourism is a form of tourism which involves visiting fragile and undisturbed natural areas and in this case, the main reason is to see gorillas. Ecotourism has its good and bad. It is good because those poor communities that live close to the habitats of the apes can have a source of revenue. Those areas are really poor, and with ecotourism, they can earn about $9000 dollars a month. However, those areas may not exactly be the safest. Stanford cites a 1999 cross border attack by rebel groups in Rwanda in which 8 ecotourists were murdered and this attack deterred tourist from going there for many months. Another negative aspect of ecotourism is how it affects the apes. Although, many apes who do live in these areas of habituation and have tourists coming in and out, the apes develop really high stress levels. When humans move too quickly or make loud noises, the apes are stressed out and can flee. Not only that, but increased stress levels lowers their immune systems making them more susceptible to disease. Stanford ends this chapter saying that ecotourism is bound to happen if the countries are too poor to provide for their people and that “the apes will have to live with the results” (190). In
We are so fortunate to live in California and have access to so many of the properties operated by the National Park Service. There are thirteen national parks in California and I have been to seven of them. Enjoying the outdoors is something that is innate to our family. Even before our children could walk they were enjoying hikes through Yosemite in backpacks. This is an amazing fact that I learned from the map given to me in Sequoia National Park; “The only place Giant Sequoias grow now is on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. The 75 distinct groves are found within a narrow band about 260 miles long and 15 miles wide, at its widest point.” (Sequoia National Park, 2012). Without the National Park Service protecting and maintaining parks like Sequoia National Park, there may not be any place like this for my children to learn about this beautiful country that we live
By placing this emphasis on beauty in the wilderness the American people expected to see a beautiful wilderness, although in reality these two are not mutually exclusive. Muir supported a form of natural improvement in which alterations to the natural world are made, but not with any economic value in mind. Interestingly, Muir suggests that our wildness is a commodity to which, we are glad to see how much of even the most destructible kind is still unspoiled”. (Muir) By the time the National Park Service was founded in 1916 the American people wanted to be entertained by, and in, nature
Wilderness is a highly idealized concept in today’s society – we simply put it on a pedestal and choose to admire it as we see fit. Nature and wilderness are considered distant and remote concepts, separate from our everyday, civilized lives. By approaching the natural realm in this sense, we simply detach ourselves from our origin, which leaves us to fantasize about the great outdoors as an escape from the artificial creations of our everyday life. This desire to escape our artificial lives has lead to the construction of locations such as national parks, which merely appear to be the natural world, yet in reality they are simply just facets of the modernized world we have created.
Since its creation in 1916, the National Park Service (NPS) has had to balance between its two goals, which are to preserve wilderness and nature and to provide the public with access to these wonders in a monitored environment. These two goals tend to create a conflict for the NPS because as soon as one goal is given more priority than the other, the administration of national parks is harshly criticized by the public. The accusation that by allowing people to experience the wilderness, the NPS is corrupting the natural environment is very common, as well, as the criticism towards the lack of government funding to preserve nature and history. However, regardless of arguable criticism and a certain need for improvement, after one hundred years,
...hat it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us" ("Greenpeace usa," 2014). By closely viewing the reasons for national parks, the definition of wilderness, a critique of reasons to build or not build roads in a national park, a comparison of preservation, cost-analysis, and conservative approaches to the environment, I feel that the best approach is preservation. This preservation approach would not eliminate access to the park but seek to control public access to protect the natural environment. The end result would allow the current generation to enjoy Yellowstone Park and make sure that future generations could as well. In speaking about wilderness, Robert Nash may have expressed it best when he said, “Its preservation is not only one of the best ideas American culture ever had; it may be a better one than we ever knew” (Nash, 2001).
The National Parks Service has been working to ensure that America’s national parks are preserved and taken care
National Parks play a large part in our country’s history. In the mid-1800s, a group of people wanted to preserve the national treasures, the wilderness. Among these people was John Muir who once said “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity” . In 1872 Ulysses S Grant made Yellowstone national park the first national park. The parks are cared for by the National Park Service. They receive a budget every year that the president creates. The National Park Service works to maintain the park and keep it safe, clean, and in shape. President Theodore Roosevelt was a large advocate for the National Parks and has many quotes about the Parks includeing said, “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people”. When President Roosevelt said this he was speaking about how the
Ecotourism is defined according to Higgins (2006) as travel that preserves the environment and promotes the welfare of local people. Costa Rica is often viewed as the epicenter of ecotourism; in brief it has become the leading destination for ecotourism in Latin America (Horton, 2009). Although ecotourism has been an integral part of the Costa Rican economy over the past decades, there is a significant need to look into the neoliberal policies that drive the sector as there is research that illustrates the detriment it can cause a local community. Furthermore, Costa Rica’s ecotourism boom occurred as a result of the government’s rapid expansion of protected areas in the 1970s and 1980s to cast one fourth of the national territory (Horton, 2009). In terms of environmental efficiency, a report by the CIA (2014) highlights that Costa Rica is effectively managing its overall Carbon emission from consumption of energy at a modest 6.806 million Mt, which is measured in metric tons. Ranking Costa Rica 116th in terms of consumption, whereas Ecuador a country with similar characteristics, ranks 76th out of all countries in the world. There is also strong signals that highlight the economic role that ecotourism has formed, by the late 1990s, employing 12 percent of Costa Rica’s labor force (Horton, 2006). The forces at play, construct the system that originally initiated the ecotourism boom and has led it to this point. Thus, the implications of ecotourism in Costa Rica have widely varied from preserving forest, reducing the carbon emission from consumption of energy and incorporating ecotourism as an effective sector of the economy. However I will point out there needs to be a more broad emphasis on the counter narratives that ecotourism ...
“… It is apparent, then, that we cannot decide the question of development versus preservation by a simple referral to holy writ or an attempt to guess the intention of the founding fathers; we must make up our own minds and decide for ourselves what the national parks should be and what purpose they should serve.”-Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Over the years, past resources have quickly dwindling. Since then conservation has broadened beyond the use of natural resources, and has become a movement. Many critics of conservation believed it would stifle industrial development, however, the conservation movement has increased development over the years because it forced the need to find an alternative source of power. One of the main concepts of conservation is that it should be used to benefit the many not for the profit of the few, like big business that destroy large areas of wilderness without care for what they are destroying. Preserving wilderness areas will help with the conservation of America’s resources that are quickly dwindling. The resources we had years ago is much less due to the supply and demand of society today. Preserving certain areas will allow us to...
Tourism is an important and intricate element to society. It affects economical, social, cultural and environmental elements. Tourism can be argued to have a negative impact on the environment and decrease our already depleting resources, but tourism can also be argued to be a major contributor to strengthening economies, spread cultural traditions and improve people’s lives. Tourism
We talked about the first type which is the economic effect on the local community and the second type that is the social effect on the host community. In this part of our essay we will represent the last kind of effect on the local community by tourism. It is the environment effect on the local community. Tourism has positive and negative aspects in term of its impact on the host community. First point, tourism can help to protect the environment through reinvest some of profits, that generated by tourism, to the preservation of local environment and make it popular destination for holidays. However, it can cause pollution and damage in the environment through overuse of natural resources, such as water supply, beaches and coral reef. It also account for increased pollution through traffic emissions and littering. Additionally, tourist accommodations in general dump waste and sewage into seas and rivers. Second point, it might reduce some problems such as over-fishing by creating another source of employment. According to Tourism Concern, tourism account for more than eight per cent of jobs in the world wide and there are approximately two hundred million people work in the tourism sector on all sides of the world. (Tourism Concern, 2004). As a result a lot of people will abandon works in fishing and deforestations and tend to works in tourism industrialization. On the adverse side, it can harm the environment through polish off grass cover, harmful to wildlife and forests and grave local habitats. (BBC,
The negative impacts that tourism creates can destroy the environment and all of its resources which it depends of for survival. Tourism has the prospective to create and bring useful effects on to the environment by donation the environmental protection conservation.