Disturbed Lands (National Park Service)

[Xeoncross]

I wonder how many National Parks will exist for exploration by my grandchildren or great grandchildren. I've already seen so many trails, rivers, or "attractions" closed because some entitled guest (or guests) decided they were allowed to do ____.

The end result is a restriction on all visitors. Eventually, I fear the only way to enjoy the old caves, or wind-swept dunes or delicate back country will be to have money, a study grant or connections. Everyone else will only be allowed to the ends of the railed cement path.

[gonzo41]

There's another alternative. Those attractions will get cut off from casual visits. I watched a documentary on Yellowstone where it explained most people don't go more than 5 miles from the roads at most, and most of the park is largely untouched. You'll just end up with parks where the very coolest attractions take a lot more effort to get to and consequently, the foolish people who do silly things will either not go, because it requires planning, or perish along the way because nature doesn't suffer fools.

[jcranmer]

Probably most of them; it's more the case that a few of the National Parks are just too overcrowded--Shenandoah and Yosemite probably the worst of the lot. Although some of the National Parks do have issues that aren't related to overvisitation (Hawaii Volcanoes and Everglades both come to mind).

[thwarted]

Tragedy of the Commons Ruins Everything Around Me.

[Xeoncross]

I feel like I've seen this in the photography world as well. People don't know how to mute their loud fake cellphone camera sound or they are using the little led flash from 200 ft away which does nothing but interrupt. Even worse are people wondering around with cellphones and tablets getting into the way.

Eventually people have enough and ban all photos at venues or animal exhibits.

[lisper]

Unless we start doing something radical about climate change damn soon, national parks are going to be the least of your grandchildren's worries.

[randycupertino]

I remember how amazing Yosemite was during COVID when it was reservation-only. We felt like we had the place to ourselves. So peaceful and stunning without the hordes and the traffic jams. Truly a great national park experience.

[geodel]

Agree. Nowadays I think nobody goes to Yosemite national park as it is just too crowded.

[ada1981]

Most of the best places are still federal land, and put beyond the 2-3 hours of hiking most Americans find an ambitious day in nature.

[throwaway892238]

There's not a lot of detail on this page. Shenandoah definitely has a mix of wild and disturbed areas...

I'm kind of amazed they finally introduced ticketing for Old Rag: https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/faqs-oldrag.htm We've known for years that way too many people try to go on this difficult hike, to the point where if your hike didn't start at 9am you might be out there all day due to the log-jam of people in the narrows. Happy to see that they're improving the overall experience by putting reasonable limits on the number of visitors.

[danboarder]

I can appreciate that the term "disturbed" has a negative implied bias, but I wish the author would provide the foundational basis upon which the reader should believe or accept this assumption. The terminology later used is "loss of resources" but by definition a resource is "something that is available for use or that can be used".

https://www.wordnik.com/words/resource

[vineyardmike]

> I wish the author would provide the foundational basis upon which the reader should believe or accept this assumption

What do you mean? In this context "disturbed" means "not as it was found". Harvesting trees and mining rocks is self-evidently a disturbance over the natural environment as it was found by people.

> Trees were cut... Rocks were gathered or quarried... Small mining operations were started. Plants and animals were harvested... In a few situations, stream channels were dammed and water diversion structures were installed.

I don't think the dictionary lookup of "resource" is helpful here. I think the idea of a "Natural Resource" in the context of a park is pretty specific - especially considering the remaining context (eg. the deforestation, mining) and juxtaposing it with "cultural resource".

The "natural resources" of the national park is the trees, rocks, dirt, land etc that compose the park - the very thing being protected. The natural habitats for plants and animals that may not thrive in developed human environments. The park is conservation land and the "original" or "undisturbed" land (and everything on it) is the resource.

I think the whole framing that the authors (who are the NPS presumably) need to justify the "assumptions" is a super odd position, considering the language used in the article is pretty commonplace contextually.

[Retric]

Many resources go away when you extract them. A forest has wood, an empty field that used to be a forest doesn’t.

Disturbed land can still be valuable, but it’s much faster to turn a forest into a field than the reverse.