Wilderness in National Parks by Miles John C.;

Author:Miles, John C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Washington Press

One of the new director's first major policy changes was the establishment of a three-part classification system for the national parks. There would be recreational, historical, and natural areas “so that resources may be appropriately identified and managed in terms of their inherent values and appropriate uses.”5 Robert Sterling Yard would have approved of this, for while the “natural area” category was not called “primeval” as he would have preferred, it constituted recognition that the national park system consisted of parts with quite distinct resource values that required different management priorities and skills. Most significantly, it seemed to recognize that in some parts of the system “recreation” would not be of paramount concern. This policy decision held out the possibility that in some areas preservation of natural values would not compete with recreational values. It might promise a resolution of the perennial conflict between the “conserve” and “provide for the enjoyment of” elements of the National Park Service Act of 1916.

Foresta and others regard this new approach as a “milestone in park management policy because it prompted the Park Service to adopt a preservationist orientation in a large number of parks.”6 It was, in their view, a response to the criticisms of Mission 66 that the service was sacrificing natural park values to accommodate visitors. Roads had been the greatest concern, and Hartzog publicly disavowed support for road building in parks where natural values were paramount. Addressing the crowding in Yosemite Valley and alternatives to automobiles for transportation in the parks, he proclaimed that “people want some alternative. No more roads will be built or widened until these alternatives are explored.…We need to limit access to parks and wilderness. We've simply got to do something besides build roads in these parks if we're going to have any parks left.”7 Under Hartzog the Park Service view of roads took a turn that has been maintained since. There would be new roads and new euphemisms for roads such as “motor nature trails,” but the era of extensive road building in national parks was over.

The new classification system, conveyed as a directive from Udall to Hartzog in July 1964, was a response to the growing environmental concern soon to be called “environmentalism” in contrast to an earlier “conservation.” Udall's memo to Hartzog notes that “in recent decades, with exploding population and diminishing open space, the urgent need for national recreation areas is receiving new emphasis and attention.” The Park Service would, he directed, address this with recreation areas where provision of access would be a central goal. In natural areas, the recommendations of the Advisory Board on Wildlife Management would be implemented. Physical developments would be limited “to those that are necessary and appropriate.” As for wilderness, “Park management shall recognize and respect wilderness as a whole environment of living things whose use and enjoyment depend on their continuing interrelationship free of man's spoliation.”8 The secretary declared that “the concern of the National Park Service is the wilderness, the wildlife, the history, the recreational opportunities, etc.

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