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Public Use of the
National Park System
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Conclusions
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Public Use of the National Park System (1872-2000)
Chapter 11 |
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1. During almost a century of growth, the National Park System has achieved great diversity and wide geographic distribution. The System is no longer overwhelmingly natural and western, but environments and traditions of every part of the nation are woven together into its fabric.
2. Public or visitor use functions of the National Park System have evolved as the System grew and now embrace a cumulative succession of concepts from resort and recreation in parks and pleasuring grounds; to enjoyment by such means as will leave the scenery, natural and historic objects and wildlife unimpaired; to inspiration and benefit in historical areas; to public outdoor recreation in recreational areas; and to opportunities for solitude or primitive recreation in wilderness areas. The unifying theme in this progress has been that the natural, historical and recreational areas of the System combine to present a superb expression of our national heritage.
3. Public or visitor use of the System has increased tremendously during the 92 years of its evolution and at the same time has steadily widened to include at least some visitors from every geographic region, from both urban and rural areas, from every ethnic, religious and racial group, and from every social and economic class except the most deprived. The composition of this growing user audience is changing with the changes in our society.
4. The frame of reference developed by the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission for analyzing national patterns and activities in outdoor recreation is helpful in studying public use of the National Park System.
5. Public use of the National Park System may be thought of as pluralistic with different outdoor recreation activities pursued by different groups of people in different areas of the same park simultaneously. Day-use predominates. Some park activities, such as camping, fishing, and mountain climbing have been studied intensively. It is at least equally important to study and understand sightseeing, the principal process through which most Americans today experience at firsthand their national heritage conserved for them in their National Park System.
6. Travel for sightseeing in the National Park System is part of a world-wide social movement which in recent decades has brought the possibility of leisure travel within reach of many average men around the world. Sightseeing was one of the original objectives and is a continuing purpose and function of the National Park System as established by Congress. Sightseeing is the major visitor use of the System today. Sightseeing in the System has important values for the nation. Among other benefits, it is an important unifying force for the people of the United States.
7. Wilderness area designations, based upon a coherent and eloquent philosophy, extended hearings in and out of Congress, and helpful definitions of wilderness use in the legislation itself, provide an important means of further insuring meaningful wilderness preservation in the National Park System. Wilderness areas, by definition, provide a specialized opportunity for solitude that can best be pursued in designated wilderness areas by a limited number of people at one time. Wilderness designations reaffirm that wilderness has a definite, resolute, and permanent home in the National Park System. That home should be generous and rooted in ecological concepts, but it cannot be so large that it tends to deprive important numbers of travelling American families of the opportunity to identify themselves, by a personal visit, even by automobile, with the great examples of their own national heritage conserved in their National Park System.
8. The population of the United States is expected to double its 1960 total by 2000; but outdoor recreation activities are growing twice as fast as population, and travel to the National Park System is mounting several times more rapidly than outdoor recreation activities generally. A System travel year of one billion visits by 2000 no longer appears fantastic. To prevent indigestion followed by strangulation in the National Park System, mounting public use must be increasingly regulated.
9. Public use may be, and currently is, regulated in part by measures aimed at dispersing visitors outside the System. While some of these measures are necessary and helpful, including developing alternate routes for non-park travel, they cannot solve the basic problem of mounting travel because, for most people, there is no substitute for a visit to a national park.
10. Public use is also regulated by measures aimed at limiting developments and land uses within parks, and controlling the use of vehicles. The National Park Service seeks to provide for visitors and to achieve reasonable limits on development, road construction, and land uses. The American people, including the sightseers, are increasingly opposed to ugliness and overcrowding. New methods of public transportation, based on improved technology that will limit private automobiles in key locations while still providing access for people, are also highly important and promising. In the last analysis, however, if present travel trends continue, all these measures may also be exhausted long before increases in travel cease.
11. Last of all, public use is also regulated by direct controls over the volume, duration, and character of visits to important features and heavily used facilities. Such controls are supported by codes of visitor conduct, and information and interpretive programs. If park travel mounts are expected, many more direct controls over the number and duration of visits to key features and perhaps to entire parks will have to be developed, especially in older areas; and the Service may have to reconsider its policy of admitting all visitors if the quality of park experience is to be maintained. This may be the largest single task in regulating public use in the years ahead. It is none too soon to intensify further development of such methods now so they will be available when and if needed.
12. A new, comprehensive study of public use of the National Park System, past, present and future, is urgently needed, including detailed studies of heavily used areas. Management of the National Park System must be based not only on thorough knowledge of its natural, historical and recreational resources, but also on surer knowledge of the evolving character of its citizen users. These studies should be conducted by behavioral scientists, aided by ecologists, historical preservationists, and representatives of the management, statistical, interpretive, planning and design elements of Service organization. Such studies should be given high priority in order that the Service may meet the real needs of growing numbers of diverse users, and at the same time manage the System so as to continue to protect its quality as an invaluable part of our national heritage.
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Last Modified: Thurs, Mar 14 2002 7:08 am PDT
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