United States' National Park Management: Values, Policy, and Possible Hints for Others

Abstract

National park managers have to make difficult and often controversial decisions regarding how best to protect parks' resources and provide for their continuing use and enjoyment. Strictly speaking, resolution of parks' problems must be based on whether the NPS is adhering to its legislative mandate to regulate development and use and to protect parks' resources. The most basic fiduciary duties of the NPS are to manage resources in natural conditions, provide for use and enjoyment, and provide benefits for present and future generations. However, neither the legislation, judicial interpretations, nor the NPS, has defined the terms natural, appropriate forms (values) of use and enjoyment, or how to resolve intergenerational conflicts between present and future generations. Because neither scientific standards nor criteria of appropriate use have been defined, the NPS traditionally has fashioned policy by compromise—to reflect different citizen constituencies with preferences for different and often conflicting values.