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22 April 2006
Spirit of America Reflected in U.S. Park System
U.S. National Park Service preserves sites of national, international value
Knowledge of the United States can be gleaned from its history, laws and records. Statistics on U.S. geography, population and economics are mind-numbingly abundant. But for those who seek to grasp the spirit of the nation and understand the vast array of disparate elements that is America, there is no better teacher than the U.S. National Park System.
Whether vast wildernesses or tiny buildings, these parks capture the splendor and the grandeur of the United States, its natural and historical treasures, the nation’s pride, shame and sorrows. The U.S. National Park System is one of the country’s most valuable inheritances, held in trust for the citizens of the United States and nurtured for enjoyment by future generations. In 2005, more than 423 million experienced that legacy firsthand in visits to 388 areas encompassing more than 336 thousand square kilometers.
The nation’s roots are deep in the ancient volcanoes of Oregon’s Crater Lake and Washington state’s North Cascades; fossils of the land’s earliest inhabitants lie in Colorado’s Dinosaur National Monument. The towering walls of the Yosemite Valley and the deep cleft of the Grand Canyon bear witness to the power of nature, while South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore and San Francisco’s Golden Gate testify to the power of man.
The U.S. National Parks also tell the stories of the nation’s peoples, from the ancient settlers from Asia commemorated at the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve to more the recent arrivals listed at Ellis Island under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty. The tragedy of the forced removal of American Indians from their homelands is commemorated on Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, which stretches across nine states. In the District of Columbia, the triumph over the evils of slavery is celebrated at the Frederick Douglass House, home of the famous abolitionist, writer, lecturer, statesman and Underground Railroad conductor, himself a former slave.
Within the park system, monuments to the grief and glory of U.S. armed conflicts stand in mute eloquence at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg, the USS Arizona in Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor and the District of Columbia’s Vietnam Memorial. (See related article.)
NATIONAL PRIDE, GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE
Through the national parks, the United States preserves its natural, cultural and historic heritage and offers to the world a window on the American experience. It also acts as steward to resources invaluable to the world.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a nongovernmental organization founded in 1965 under the Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites in Venice, is UNESCO's principal adviser in matters concerning the protection of monuments and sites and counsels the World Heritage Committee and UNESCO on the nomination of sites to the World Heritage List.
The secretary of the interior, through the National Park Service, is responsible for identifying and nominating U.S. sites to the list. Currently, there are 20 World Heritage sites in the United States, including two sites jointly administered with Canada. Among the U.S. preserves judged important to the entire world are Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Great Smoky Mountains and the Everglades.
Yosemite, in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains, is an alpine wilderness with groves of giant Sequoia trees and towering rock formations carved from the granite by glaciers. "No temple made with hands can compare to Yosemite," according to naturalist John Muir, whose writings inspired conservationists and lawmakers to seek federal protection for its pristine beauty. On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill establishing Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove as an inalienable public trust, the first time a federal government had preserved scenic lands for the enjoyment by current and future generations. The initial set-aside eventually grew to 3,120 square kilometers (1,200 square miles), an area somewhat larger than the country of Luxembourg.
Yellowstone, in the states of Montana and Wyoming, was established by an act of Congress in 1872 as the first U.S national park. (Yosemite originally was assigned in trust to California). A popular recreation site, its complex geology makes it a uniquely valuable natural laboratory, with several hundred geysers, thousands of hot springs, a landscape forged by glaciers and fired by volcanoes. Yellowstone is also one of the United State’s foremost wildlife preserve and serves as a center of ecological research. The park covers 8,987 square kilometers (3,472 square miles), an area approximately the size of Cyprus.
The Grand Canyon, in northern Arizona, tells the story of Earth itself in the colorful strata of canyon walls that reveal rock formations documenting the planet’s history. For approximately 6 million years, the Colorado River has been carving its way through the Colorado Plateau. The resulting gorge varies from 1 mile to 4 miles in depth, is 217 miles long and nearly 18 miles across at some points. Federally established in 1919, the park is nearly 5,000 square kilometers (1,904 square miles), somewhat larger than the African nation of Cape Verde.
The Great Smoky Mountains, created in 1934 in parts of North Carolina and Tennessee, comprise one of the largest protected land areas in the eastern United States. Home to an estimated 100,000 species of plants and animals, the park is an International Biosphere Preserve Program and the focus of study by scientists from around the world. In addition to its biodiversity and unique geologic features, the park preserves a significant record of human history, including sites of early American Indian settlements, within its 2,086 square kilometers (834 square miles), an area just a little larger than the principality of Monaco.
The Everglades, in Florida, is a fragile ecosystem formed by a shallow freshwater river, nearly 50 miles wide at some points, which flows slowly across southern tip of Florida. Established in 1947, Everglades National Park, another International Biosphere Preserve, is home to more than 300 species of birds as well as alligators, manatees and Florida panthers within its sawgrass marshes, pine forests and mangrove islands. The Everglades was designated a Wetland of International Importance in 1987, under the terms of the Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. The pact, popularly known as the Ramsar Convention provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. The park’s 5,560 square kilometers make it approximately the size of the Asian nation Brunei.
In these and other wild places of North America, the U.S. National Park Service labors to carry forward naturalist John Muir’s dream, as expressed in 1901, to preserve “the beauty, grandeur, and all-embracing usefulness of our wild mountain forest reservations and parks, with a view to inciting the people to come and enjoy them, and get them into their hearts.”
Additional information about visiting U.S. parks is available on the U.S. National Park Service Web site. Information on traveling to the United States is available on the State Department's Destination USA Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
