Courtney Skeldon
Special to In Motion
We may be on the top of the “food chain,” but that does not mean everything below that line ceases to exist. We need to realize that our National Parks are a part of this nation and what’s within their locations are not only crucial animals, plants and waterways, but also they are important to keeping our environment clean and healthy.
According to “The 10 Best of Everything” by Fran Mainella, there are 58 National Parks in the United States. That number may sound huge, if you think about how massive some of the parks are, but truth is our national parks only take up 14 percent of our land in the U.S. So, something that is supposed to protect our wildlife and be a historic example of beauty in our land barely takes up less than a quarter of the country.
Let that sink in. In Florida there are three parks Biscayne, Dry Tortugas and the most heard about ─ the Everglades. These parks are important to our ecosystem because they allow not only the animals to thrive, but also the planet itself. The National Wildlife Federation names 1,361 plants and animals listed as threatened or endangered. If we didn’t have parks where these animals are protected, where they know they can survive, that number would be quite larger.
Yes, there are some successes ─ such as in the Everglades where the Florida Panther was almost instinct at 20 animals in 1973 and now are up to 100 due to conservation. Still, another underlying problem in our parks is littering. The New York Times in its September article, “A National Parks Plea: Enjoy the Animals; Don’t Act like One,” reports that the increase in littering was so great that the Rocky Mountain National Park issued a plea for assistance in trying to educate the public on park etiquette.
We have all seen the effects of plastics and other contaminants on sea turtles. Those same effects take place in our parks and it’s something that needs to be addressed. So the next time you have a piece of trash save it in your backpack or just hold onto it until the nearest waste bin and you’ll be making a difference.
While National Parks conserve wildlife and our environment, what do they do for humans? They show what our world is like without technology. They are a great way to go back in time and embrace the beauty of what our nation has to offer.
In their book “The National Park: America’s Best Idea” Daytona Duncan and Ken Burns write that, “A summer pilgrimage to the great parks of the West was a rite of passage for the American family. For some it was a journey of hope to understand the American way of life; for others, to rediscover their place in the natural world.”
For those who do not think National Parks are a huge deal, I encourage you to take a step back and realize that we aren’t the only important living things on this planet. The very plants we destroy everyday supply us with the oxygen we breathe. The more animals we affect with our pollution the less food we have, along with environmental changes. We as a society need to know that we must protect what may be the only thing that we can use to save the plants, animals and waterways.
If we appreciate National Parks for their beauty and what they supply to us, then we should be able to take the next step toward success. So today when you return home, say to your parents or annoying roommate “Hey let’s visit a park to experience something other than our everyday technology.”
Editor’s Note: The media report that overall visitation to national parks is on track to surpass 325 million in 2016, breaking the all-time high of 307 million set in 2015, according to federal figures. The record-breaking three-year stretch came after parks visitation ebbed and flowed between 255-287 million for nearly three decades.