National Park System Research Articles

The Birth of National Parks: Culture and Nature in Visiting the Wilderness in the United States (1920-1940).

This paper aims to analyze the birth of the National Park System and Service in the United States, as well as the factors related to the increase in visitors to the Parks between 1920 and 1940. The work is based on the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Environmental history, focusing on the history of nature conservation and the creation of protected areas. It delves into the elements of regulation of the services related to national Parks, and the institutionalization of practices of visitation in that period. The central arguments of this article are: the dissemination of natural beauty in the United States, creation of a positive idea about frequency and visitation to parks, and nature conservation areas in the early twentieth century. Also, from the history of the creation of the services and management systems of the National Parks in President Wilson´s tenure (1913 - 1921), it is possible to identify the relationship between society, culture and nature in this historical context.

Catálogo de la flora vascular de los Parques Nacionales de Colombia: Santuario de Flora y Fauna de Iguaque y su zona de amortiguamiento

Colombia has 59 natural areas in the System of Natural National Parks. The inventory of the flora of these areas is incipient since only incomplete lists have been published for just 13 of them. This is the first article focused on publishing new information deposited in national herbaria on the flora of National Parks. It starts with the Wildlife and Flora Sanctuary Iguaque where a list of 816 species belonging to 141 families of vascular plants is documented. We found that 89.5% of the recorded species are native, two species are endemic to the Sanctuary, 30 can possibly considered as Assets Worthy of Conservation, 47 are categorized as being at some risk of threat, and 213 have some type of current or potential use.

Catálogo de la flora vascular de los Parques Nacionales de Colombia: SFF de Iguaque y su zona de amortiguamiento

Colombia has 59 natural areas in the System of Natural National Parks. The inventory of the flora of these areas is incipient since only incomplete lists have been published for just 13 of them. This is the first article focused on publishing new information deposited in national herbaria on the flora of National Parks. It starts with the Wildlife and Flora Sanctuary Iguaque where a list of 816 species belonging to 141 families of vascular plants is documented. We found that 89.5% of the recorded species are native, two species are endemic to the Sanctuary, 30 can possibly considered as Assets Worthy of Conservation, 47 are categorized as being at some risk of threat, and 213 have some type of current or potential use.

Tras Bambalinas y a Plena Luz del Día: La creación de parques nacionales en Colombia en las décadas de 1960 y 1970

Este artículo estudia la creación de un sistema de parques nacionales en Colombia, con referencia a otros países de América Latina, como parte de la formación de una nueva área de responsabilidad estatal –que podemos denominar ‘estado natural’– encargada de velar por el cuidado de la naturaleza. En ausencia de un movimiento ambientalista que abogara por la creación de áreas protegidas, este desarrollo se explica a partir de la concentración de poder en la figura del presidente. El artículo también reconstruye el proceso de creación en terreno del Parque Nacional Tayrona, que incluyó el desalojo de colonos y el enfrentamiento con intereses turísticos. Esta historia muestra cómo el ‘estado natural’ surgió con el apoyo de ciertas instituciones estatales y en oposición a otras, y cómo ayudó a fortalecer al estado central, para el que ganó legitimidad frente a ciertos grupos, mientras que la erosionó frente a otros.

国立公園の計画と管理の課題 : 大雪山国立公園を事例とした検証(テーマ:国立公園の新たな管理へ向けて-ニーズの変容と制度的対応-,2014年春季大会)

国立公園の計画と管理の課題 : 大雪山国立公園を事例とした検証(テーマ:国立公園の新たな管理へ向けて-ニーズの変容と制度的対応-,2014年春季大会)

The Sublimity of Great Landscapes

A personal evocation of one of the glories of the US National Park system: Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Utah.

第2報告 イギリスの国立公園における公園管理と関係主体の役割（国立公園と森林管理-その成立、理念と実際- (財)林業経済研究所第6回シンポジウム（林業経済学会共催））

第2報告 イギリスの国立公園における公園管理と関係主体の役割（国立公園と森林管理-その成立、理念と実際- (財)林業経済研究所第6回シンポジウム（林業経済学会共催））

村串仁三郎著『国立公園成立史の研究-開発と自然保護の確執を中心に-』（書評）

村串仁三郎著『国立公園成立史の研究-開発と自然保護の確執を中心に-』（書評）

Land cover changes and environmental protection: A study based on transition matrices concerning Sardinia (Italy)

Prevention and mitigation of the progressive spread of artificialization are key goals of environmental protection policies leading to the establishment of protected areas. Artificialization processes can be effectively assessed by analyzing land cover and land use changes, which put in evidence different kinds of processes that spur a decrease in natural areas and an increase in artificial ones. In this article, we first analyze land cover change processes by developing transition matrices using the simplified Land and Ecosystem Account taxonomy, and next we compare and contrast processes that take place in areas characterized by different levels of environmental protection, which we identify as follows: natural protected areas, sites of the European Natura 2000 network, and unprotected areas. We take the Italian island of Sardinia as a case study, since a system of national and regional parks and an extensive Natura 2000 network have been established in this region, and analyze and compare land cover change processes over more than twenty years (i.e. between 1990 and 2012). Our results highlight significant implications for the definition and implementation of planning policies aiming at preventing or mitigating artificialization processes within the island. However, the methodological approach here proposed can be applied in other European regional contexts so as to tailor planning policies to the local characteristics of ongoing land cover transition processes.

報告３ 国立公園の計画と管理の課題（国立公園の新たな管理へ向けて-ニーズの変容と制度的対応- 林業経済学会2014年春季大会シンポジウム）

報告３ 国立公園の計画と管理の課題（国立公園の新たな管理へ向けて-ニーズの変容と制度的対応- 林業経済学会2014年春季大会シンポジウム）

Species-free species distribution models describe macroecological properties of protected area networks.

Among the greatest challenges facing the conservation of plants and animal species in protected areas are threats from a rapidly changing climate. An altered climate creates both challenges and opportunities for improving the management of protected areas in networks. Increasingly, quantitative tools like species distribution modeling are used to assess the performance of protected areas and predict potential responses to changing climates for groups of species, within a predictive framework. At larger geographic domains and scales, protected area network units have spatial geoclimatic properties that can be described in the gap analysis typically used to measure or aggregate the geographic distributions of species (stacked species distribution models, or S-SDM). We extend the use of species distribution modeling techniques in order to model the climate envelope (or “footprint”) of individual protected areas within a network of protected areas distributed across the 48 conterminous United States and managed by the US National Park System. In our approach we treat each protected area as the geographic range of a hypothetical endemic species, then use MaxEnt and 5 uncorrelated BioClim variables to model the geographic distribution of the climatic envelope associated with each protected area unit (modeling the geographic area of park units as the range of a species). We describe the individual and aggregated climate envelopes predicted by a large network of 163 protected areas and briefly illustrate how macroecological measures of geodiversity can be derived from our analysis of the landscape ecological context of protected areas. To estimate trajectories of change in the temporal distribution of climatic features within a protected area network, we projected the climate envelopes of protected areas in current conditions onto a dataset of predicted future climatic conditions. Our results suggest that the climate envelopes of some parks may be locally unique or have narrow geographic distributions, and are thus prone to future shifts away from the climatic conditions in these parks in current climates. In other cases, some parks are broadly similar to large geographic regions surrounding the park or have climatic envelopes that may persist into near-term climate change. Larger parks predict larger climatic envelopes, in current conditions, but on average the predicted area of climate envelopes are smaller in our single future conditions scenario. Individual units in a protected area network may vary in the potential for climate adaptation, and adaptive management strategies for the network should account for the landscape contexts of the geodiversity or climate diversity within individual units. Conservation strategies, including maintaining connectivity, assessing the feasibility of assisted migration and other landscape restoration or enhancements can be optimized using analysis methods to assess the spatial properties of protected area networks in biogeographic and macroecological contexts.

Valuing visitor services and access to protected areas: The case of Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda

Policymakers and recreation site managers use changes in fee structure, either introducing park entrance fees or increasing existing ones, to generate revenues, improve services, and reduce damages associated with over-use. Increase in park usage fee, however, can make the park inaccessible to certain segments of tourists. Understanding park users' response to changes in fees and its implication on park use equity is, thus, important to achieving a park's full potential in a socially and environmentally responsible way. This information is crucial especially for developing countries, where the issue has received relatively less attention and national park systems are chronically underfunded. This paper contributes to the literature on park access fees by: empirically assessing park use equity between and among international and national tourists visiting Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda, and; developing an approach for determining predictors and mean willingness to pay values for park entrance. Results of our survey-based approach show a positive willingness to pay values for park entrance and fee increases. Our results also show that it is possible to raise revenue without exacerbating existing park use differences.

Strengthening protected areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services in China.

Recent expansion of the scale of human activities poses severe threats to Earth's life-support systems. Increasingly, protected areas (PAs) are expected to serve dual goals: protect biodiversity and secure ecosystem services. We report a nationwide assessment for China, quantifying the provision of threatened species habitat and four key regulating services-water retention, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, and carbon sequestration-in nature reserves (the primary category of PAs in China). We find that China's nature reserves serve moderately well for mammals and birds, but not for other major taxa, nor for these key regulating ecosystem services. China's nature reserves encompass 15.1% of the country's land surface. They capture 17.9% and 16.4% of the entire habitat area for threatened mammals and birds, but only 13.1% for plants, 10.0% for amphibians, and 8.5% for reptiles. Nature reserves encompass only 10.2-12.5% of the source areas for the four key regulating services. They are concentrated in western China, whereas much threatened species' habitat and regulating service source areas occur in eastern provinces. Our analysis illuminates a strategy for greatly strengthening PAs, through creating the first comprehensive national park system of China. This would encompass both nature reserves, in which human activities are highly restricted, and a new category of PAs for ecosystem services, in which human activities not impacting key services are permitted. This could close the gap in a politically feasible way. We also propose a new category of PAs globally, for sustaining the provision of ecosystems services and achieving sustainable development goals.

Press release on Master Plan on Establishing China’s National Park System by officials of National Development and Reform Commission

Press release on Master Plan on Establishing China’s National Park System by officials of National Development and Reform Commission

Conservation first, national representative, and commonwealth: the three concepts of China’s National Park System Construction

Conservation first, national representative, and commonwealth: the three concepts of China’s National Park System Construction

Steadily promoting the progress of the national park system reform through the perfectness of national park legislation

Steadily promoting the progress of the national park system reform through the perfectness of national park legislation

The Politics of U.S. National Park Unit Creation: The Influence of Electoral Competition, Political Control, and Presidential Election Years

Conservation invokes a range of policy issues including questions of economics, recreation, public good, stewardship, and governance obligations. When U.S. legislators consider creating new National Park units, interrelated policy issues influence decisions about whether to support or oppose a new site. In this article, we explored the influence of electoral competition, political party in control, and presidential election year on the number of new National Park units created between 1934 and 2014. Electoral competition theory hypothesizes that as the congressional majority margin decreases (gets more competitive), politicians act in more strategic and less partisan ways. In this analysis, high electoral competition occurred if the party in power had less than a 55% majority; low electoral competition was defined as a 55% or more majority. Three conditions of political control were also examined: (a) Democrats controlled the Presidency and the House, (b) Republicans controlled the Presidency and the House, and (c) shared party control (one party controlled the Presidency and the other party controlled the House). The effect that presidential election years had on the number of new park units created was also considered. Results indicated that more park units were created during periods of low electoral competition ( M = 5.00) than high electoral competition ( M = 2.04), F (1, 79) = 7.24, p = .009, η = .084 (Hypothesis 1). In addition, there was evidence of partisanship (Hypothesis 2). When Democrats controlled both the Presidency and the House, an average of 5.55 new park units were created annually. When political control was shared, an average of 3.34 park units were created per year, and when Republicans were in control only one park unit on average was created annually, F (2, 78) = 3.54, p = .034, η = .289. More park units were created in presidential election years ( M = 5.02), than nonpresidential election years ( M = 2.06), F (1, 74) = 2.32, p = .024, η = .259 (Hypothesis 3). There was no evidence of interaction effects among the variables (contrary to Hypothesis 4). This research contributes to the existing literature on the development and growth of the National Park System by analyzing the role of electoral competition, political control, and presidential election years as they effect the creation of new National Park units. Subscribe to JPRA

Operation Overview and the Creation of Piscataway Park

During the post–World War II period, a combination of individuals and institutions worked together to secure the permanent stewardship of the vista visible across the Potomac River from George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation. Called “Operation Overview,” the campaign resulted in the creation of the only unit of the National Park System designed to protect the viewshed from a historic property. The establishment of Piscataway Park required cooperation, creativity, and compromise among those parties interested in stabilizing the setting of the iconic view from Washington’s home.

Helminth Parasites of Lane Snapper, Lutjanus synagris from Santiaguillo Reef, Veracruz, Mexico

<p>In 51 specimens of lane snapper, <em>Lutjanus synagris</em>, captured in Santiaguillo Reef, Veracruz Reef National Park System, State of Veracruz, in the Southern Gulf of Mexico, a total of 25 helminth species were recovered, as follows: 9 digeneans (8 adults, and 1 metacercaria), 7 monogeneans, 6 nematodes (4 adults, and 2 larvae), 2 cestodes (both larvae), and 1 acanthocephalan (juvenile). Out of the 25 species, 11 are new host records; 2 have prevalence > 50%, and mean intensity > 4.7; <em>Haliotrematoides cornigerum</em> (monogenean) had the highest prevalence, 94.11%, followed by <em>Euryhaliotrema tubocirrus </em>with prevalence of 66.67%. Richness (<em>S</em> = 25) and diversity (Shannon index <em>H’</em> = 2.13) at component community, and endoparasites infracommunity level (<em>S</em> = 6.27 ± 2.5, Brillouin index<em> H</em> = 1.07 ± 0.42), and ectoparasites infracommunity level (<em>S</em> = 3.6875 ± 1.87, Brillouin index <em>H</em> = 0.74 ± 0.4), were similar to those found in other marine fish. Results suggests that the host feeding habits determine the endoparasites composition, while the ectoparasites composition is associated to the environmental conditions.</p>

Sound and identity explored through the Indian Tamil diaspora and Tamil Nadu

ABSTRACTSound is very much a part of identity. While identities are neither singular nor stable, they can be expressed through sound in daily life. Scholars have used soundscapes in geography to understand urban environments within cities, rural national park systems, and provide musical insights into cultural landscapes. However, furthering discussion on the role of sound in identity can move concepts of soundscape and cultural landscape forward. The goal of this paper is to investigate how identity and culture, though they are dynamic, can be performed and stabilized through sound in particular moments and yet also exist banally. Soundscapes through both spoken language and music can give geographers further insights on identity and place. Sound can also show how non-dominant identities distinguish themselves from larger national identities. With research in Tamil Nadu, India and Cleveland, OH, this paper examines sound’s role in identity, belonging, and community through lived experience and performance. Focusing on intersections and tensions between soundscapes, this paper investigates how the Tamil soundscape is used to assert and perform identity.