EXPLORE THE PARKS

• The president should issue an executive order to protect national parks from external threats such as invasive species, development on adjacent land, oil drilling, and air pollution and to require better coordination among federal agencies to protect parks.
  
  
• The Park Service should work cooperatively with other federal agencies, with state and local governments, and with private landowners to improve the planning and cooperation critical to preserving wildlife and habitat. Land managers working adjacent to parks should eliminate or mitigate harmful practices that degrade park ecosystems, such as logging, grazing, and mining.
  
  
• Local and state governments should implement smart-growth development policies in national park gateway communities and within broader park ecosystems to fight sprawl, conserve open space, and protect natural values and wildlife.
  
  
• The Park Service should complete a Biodiversity Action Plan for all appropriate park units.
  
  
• The Park Service should, with the support of Congress, restore natural ecosystem processes through steps such as dam and channelization removal and stream restoration where necessary to recover natural hydrology, as at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Olympic National Park.
  
  The greater Everglades ecosystem is one example of a comprehensive restoration program already under way. The South Florida Water Management District is working with the Corps of Engineers, advisors from the National Park Service, and private groups such as the National Parks Conservation Association and Audubon of Florida to restore the Everglades ecosystem, beginning with the natural meanders and flood-mitigating capacity of the Kissimmee River, a tributary of Lake Okeechobee and the headwaters of the Everglades.
  
  
• The Park Service should guide visitor activities to prevent damage to parks, eliminating inappropriate uses and impacts as needed. This difficult goal would have to be addressed individually for each park, because the impact of these uses on biodiversity varies greatly from park to park. Some protective actions are likely to be controversial though necessary, such as limiting visitor access to delicate areas at particular times.
  
  
• The Park Service should expand its participation in Partners in Flight and other interorganizational migratory bird conservation efforts, such as the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, as directed by presidential executive order, and should initiate programs to meet the needs of migratory birds, including more research to identify critical habitat.
  
  
• The Park Service, other federal agencies, states, and local governments should reduce impacts of roads on biodiversity in and around parks.
  
  
• Congress should strengthen the Endangered Species Act, retaining its essential features while also fostering conservation of entire ecosystems, promoting species recovery, improving cooperative programs with private landowners, and providing adequate funding.

   Reducing or eliminating harmful invasions by nonnative plants and animals in some cases may require partial or complete closure and restoration of roads, trails, and other facilities. Development of roads, trails, and utility rights-of-ways provide access to and through unique park ecosystems. 

   Roadways were built in the past to assist in wildfire suppression efforts, to provide recreational opportunities, and to facilitate administrative activities. 

Roads fragment habitat and provide easy access for expanding populations of invasive plant and animal species. Roadways that are not essential to park management should be restored to native vegetation, and those that are essential should be closely monitored, with invasive species removed.

   Congressional designation of wilderness for lands within national parks can be one of the strongest protections for national parks. Wilderness prevents development, provides a mechanism for limiting other human impacts (e.g., from recreation), emphasizes management for native species and natural processes, and encourages scientific research.

   The National Park System includes 44 million acres of wilderness in 44 different parks. Designated wilderness accounts for about 53 percent of National Park System acreage, with about 80 percent of park wilderness in Alaska. 

   The Park Service also has completed wilderness studies for 32 other parks. These studies recommend additional wilderness designations totaling 22 million acres in such flagship parks as Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, Glacier, Canyonlands, and Big Bend and in 13 parks in Alaska. Seventeen of these wilderness recommendations have been formally submitted to Congress, but Congress has failed to act on these recommendations, in some cases, for more than 20 years.