Over the Horizon Line | Column By Hal Rothman

Why the Nation Needs National Parks

By Hal Rothman, 5-08-06

I love the national parks, both for what they are and what they represent about this country, but I have great fear about their future. I am afraid that both the public and park advocates take the parks for granted, in very different ways, but that unintentionally create long-term dangers for the national park system.

National parks are a highlight of American democracy, one of our few genuine additions to the principle of a social contract between the governed and the governors. Despite the American conceit that we invented the idea of democracy, we didn't; all we did was tweak it a bit. National parks were one of the best wrinkles we put into the game plan of the Age of the Enlightenment.

Imagine what the idea of a "nation's park" meant in a world where all the land belonged to someone richer than you. Even if you never visited one, the very existence of such a place promised that the world could get better, that you, immigrant or native, urban or rural, could belong in this world, could find a way to be part of something larger.

I am deeply afraid that in twenty years, this will no longer be so. And when that happens, the votes in Congress necessary to provide the national parks with the funds they need may not be there either.

The public that loves the parks is still overwhelmingly white and middle class, precisely the segment that is diminishing as a percentage of the American whole. This group, while still tremendously numerous and influential, are very less likely to be so in twenty-five years. Given demographic trends, this constituency is likely to be a plurality instead of a clear majority before too long.

What will happen when senators and representatives whose states and regions depend on the parks have to negotiate with powerful blocs that have no appreciation for the institution? Will parks far away have the same appeal to the representatives of the future as they do to those of today?

National parks used to mean a ticket to Americanism, an experience at the very core of the meaning of national identity. Remember when it seemed like everyone had an "I Visited Carlsbad Caverns" bumper sticker on their car? It signified more than a vacation. Even today, people of a certain vintage get all misty-eyed when I bring up this long-forgotten symbol from their youth. More than anything, the bumper sticker made you part of something larger than yourself.

Today, that sense of belonging comes from commercial culture, from television and the airwaves, from music and People Magazine. Where do Super Bowl MVPs want to go? Yellowstone? No, it's Disney World.

The point was driven home to me a few years ago, on a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim. There, I watched multitudes of Americans, new immigrant and native-born, seeking and finding their identity in the embrace of Mickey and Minnie; this was defining, a way of being baptized into the state religion of our day, self-indulgent liberal consumerism.

This change in perception does not bode well, but even worse is the lack of communication between the conservation community and the larger public, the newest America. The immigrants of today represent the future of the country; so do the seemingly anarchic mountain bikers and the extreme sports enthusiasts of today. In 25 years, they will be stockbrokers and physicians, political brokers and voters.

I’m not certain they love the national parks like you and I do. And it is our fault. We haven’t done a good enough job of competing with pop culture for the attention of the many. We haven’t successfully explained what the parks mean, concentrating too much on their spectacular scenery. And more than anything, we have not connected with the new America, the urban, immigrant, Spanish- and Tagalog-speaking people, not to mention those who speak so many other languages, so prevalent in cities in the West.

We are the most successful polyglot nation on earth; We are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I will take our racial and ethnic problems over those of any European nation. In the U.S., the potential to become American is always there. In Germany or France, that is simply not true.

But what does being American mean, especially twenty years from now? I would hope that appreciation for the beauty and meaning of national parks remains in 2026. If it does, if Congress in twenty years still thinks national parks are important, it will be because we have changed trajectory from the present. This is still possible. It requires more from all of us who love the national parks.

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