About National Parks

In 1832, a traveling man ahead of his times, George Catlin, was already thinking about the impact of America's expansion on civilization, wildlife, and wilderness as he traveled through the Dakotas. Land might be preserved, he thought, "by some great protecting policy of government...in a magnificent park...A nation's park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!"

Forty years later Congress established Yellowstone National Park by act of Congress on March 1, 1872, and set the precedent that public lands were to be set aside and administered by the federal government "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." President Woodrow created the National Park Service on August 25, 1916, finally establishing a management system for our parks. The National Park Service, headed by the Department of the Interior, was responsible for protecting the 40 national parks and monuments existent at that point.

In the years that followed, additional national parks and monuments were folded into the National Park Service. An Executive Order in 1933 transferred 63 national monuments and military sites from the Forest Service and the War Department to the National Park Service. This action was a major step in the development of today's national system of parks — a system that includes areas of historical, cultural, scientific and scenic importance.

New national parks are now created through acts of Congress.

The individual units within the National Park System include 19 separate designations, such as lakeshores, seashores, and battlefields. The National Park System today comprises 391 units — 58 national parks, plus 333 national monuments and historic sites — in 49 States (the only exception is Delaware).

Not All National Parks are Wilderness, but Parks Can and Should Contain Wilderness

National parks are not by default Wilderness. Many national parks contain roads, restaurants, hotels, lodges, or other facilities that are prohibited in wilderness areas. In many parks, such as Yosemite, Rocky Mountain, and the North Cascades, some portions of the park are designated as wilderness to protect natural values, while other portions are non-wilderness to provide opportunities for development.

A good example is Yosemite National Park. The popular, heavily trafficked Yosemite Valley has roads, lodges, restaurants, and other facilities. However, there are over 700,000 acres of Wilderness in park backcountry where users can take advantage of the solitude and recreational opportunities unique to Wilderness areas.

Over 94 percent of Yosemite National Park is designated Wilderness, and more than 700 miles of trails provide access to the wilderness. Many Americans take heart in simply knowing that such areas exist, given that the idea of an uninhabited frontier was such a vital driving force of our national heritage.

The National Park Service maintains the most Wilderness acreage of any of the Federal land management agencies, weighing in at 43,890,500 acres or 40% of the nearly 110 million acres of Wilderness. Of the other three land management agencies, the Forest Service manages 36,160,078 acres, followed by the Fish and Wildlife Service which manages 20,702,350 acres, and finally the Bureau of Land Management which manages 8,726,011 for a total of 109,478,939 acres of Wilderness as of July 2009.

Read more about why we need Wilderness in National Parks.

photos:
Arches National Park, Utah. Photo by Jason K. Bach.
Yosemite National Park. Photo by Jerri Riffel, Flickr.