National parks and other protected areas in North America in relation to those in Norway and Sweden

Abstract

In Scandinavia, national parks are mostly restricted to wilderness areas, usually without roads. Most of them are in the mountains and are visited by relatively few people. The problem of ecological balance in national parks in North America is discussed. While, for instance, forest fires have been avoided in the national parks of the United States since the first such park was founded in 1872, the new ecological park policy allows attempts at controlled fires and thinning of dense forest by logging. Success in experiments of this kind requires good knowledge of the ecological potential of the species and successional trends involved—knowledged found only in experienced ecologists. The need is stressed for a strong national park administration, with a high degree of influence of ecologists, in the Scandinavian countries—both to avoid unbalanced use of the parks in the future, and to restrict nature-disturbing activities to areas of lesser interest for purpose of conservation.