Standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, the scene is as breathtaking as ever, seemingly unmarred by the trappings of modern civilization. The immense chasm is lined by burnt orange cliffs alight from the descending late afternoon sun, and its blue-grey rock slopes are dappled in shadows as the afternoon begins to fade toward evening. A noticeable quietude and serenity overcomes even the casual visitor upon peering into the unending folds of the canyon, whether pondering the eons that it took for the Colorado River to carve its way across the southwestern desert or just soaking up the grandeur of the place.
All is not peaceful and quiet here, however. Grand Canyon National Park, much like its counterparts across the national park system, is also enmeshed in a swirl of controversies, many of which arise from beyond the park’s boundaries and escape most park visitors’ notice. The seemingly distant federal sequester is taking a toll at the park. Even though the canyon annually attracts more than 4 million visitors and the cement pathway that runs for several miles along its south rim is now filled with several hundred other late-day visitors, I have not seen a ranger once during my visit, an apparent casualty of the park’s shrinking budget.
Indeed, the stunning scene in front of me belies the realities that confront this iconic national park and the other 59 large natural parks that represent the crown jewels in America’s national park system. When we registered at a gateway hotel just outside the park’s southern boundary, we were greeted by the steady thrum of aircraft coming and going from the local airport. For several decades now, the Park Service and its allies have been in a running battle with commercial air tour operators over the number and flight patterns of aircraft buzzing the park and disrupting its peacefulness. The air tour controversy now extends as far as Las Vegas where casino visitors are invited to spend a couple hours flying over the nearby national park, hardly the visitor experience that the park’s original founders envisioned.
Upstream from the park, the Colorado River, often regarded as the “heart” of the park, is tamed by the Glen Canyon dam, which regulates the flow of water through the park. This man-made structure has significantly altered the river’s ecology, not only placing several fish species on the federal endangered species list but also eroding the sand beaches that once lined the river, providing ready campsites for General John Wesley Powell when he first explored the river in 1869 as well as for today’s intrepid whitewater rafters. And just outside the park’s boundaries, modern day uranium miners have staked several hundred new mining claims on national forest lands, which threaten to fragment important wildlife habitat and to bring industrial activity to the park’s doorstep.
Although Congress has adopted legislation seeking to restore natural quiet to the park’s skies and a more natural flow pattern to the river and even though the Secretary of the Interior has withdrawn key national forest lands from further mining claims, these controversies that beset the Grand Canyon vividly illustrate the fact that this once remote park is not an isolated enclave unto itself. Rather, the Grand Canyon and our other national parks are connected in myriad ways to the surrounding landscape.
My new book—
To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea—explores how our conception of a national park has gradually evolved over time to take account of the larger landscape that surrounds our parks. Explaining that where we earlier viewed the parks as playgrounds, laboratories, and tourist destinations, the book argues that we must now view our national parks as the vital cores of larger ecosystems and manage them accordingly. Anything less puts at risk the very special places that we have so assiduously sought to safeguard during the past century.
Join me this Thursday, June 6th, at
King's English in Salt Lake City.
