Centennial of the National Park Service: Looking forward

As we arrive at the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS), we must come together to make sure that our public parks across the country remain protected for future generations.

For almost a century, our public lands have provided all Americans — and tourists from across the globe — with countless education and recreation opportunities. In fact, since the NPS’s inception, national parks, monuments, and historic sites have attracted over 13 billion visitors.

{mosads}From the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the east to Yosemite National Park in the west, America’s public lands are a central pillar to our nation’s booming outdoor economy. Each year, more than $640 billion is spent on outdoor activities like hiking, camping and fishing – a large portion of which take place in our nation’s public parks. It is important to make sure this booming economy can continue to thrive for the next hundred years.

In recent months, however, several members of Congress have led an effort to harm the parks that so many people from across the country enjoy. An anti-parks caucus has formed, and it aims to remove federal control over public lands and seize and sell them off to the highest bidder.

Led by Republican Rob Bishop of Utah, chair of the House Natural Resource Committee, the group seeks to undermine key environmental laws like the 1906 Antiquities Act, which allows the president to permanently protect public lands that hold scientific or historic value. The chairman has gone so far as to travel to Maine — where a local landowner is trying to hand over nearly 90,000 acres of pristine woodland and a $40 million endowment for a new park in the state — to tell Mainers that they don’t need or want a new park.

Not only are these attempts to undermine our public lands shortsighted and dismissive of our natural heritage, they also detract from meaningful efforts to ensure our majestic parks remain culturally significant for the next 100 years.  We, instead, need to focus on maintaining these treasures and fostering a park system that fully represents the diverse cultural fabric of America’s past.

But the anti-parks caucus has a completely different idea. In a short time span, members of the anti-parks caucus proposed at least 44 bills and amendments to remove or reduce protections on our public lands. This caucus is claiming to represent the public’s beliefs, even though an overwhelming amount of Americans support protections for public parks.

A recent poll found that nearly four of every five voters believe that the United States greatly benefits from our national parks and 83 percent of voters supported their elected representatives taking a strong stand for policies that protect and strengthen our national parks.

Fortunately, President Obama has taken the visionary steps necessary to move our park system in a more inclusive direction, and his administration has worked extensively with local communities to ensure that historic sites and natural spaces are permanently protected for future generations.

Places like the César E. Chávez National Monument in California, the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in Washington, DC, the Stonewall National Monument in New York, and the Pullman National Monument in Chicago are now better positioned to tell the unique stories that reflect our country’s rich history and diversity.

On the occasion of the National Park Service centennial, we must look for ways to build on the visionary concept of our nation’s parks while continually fighting back against the unfortunate attempts to undermine what has been dubbed “America’s best idea.”

Permanently protecting places that tell the difficult story of our past or places that hold millions of years of natural history are part of what makes our country special. We must be forward thinking and work to ensure that future generations will have the opportunity to enjoy the next one hundred years of our nation’s parks.

Gene Karpinski is the President of the League of Conservation Voters headquartered in Washington, DC.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.