News Main
Animals
Archaeology
Dinosaurs
Earth
History
Human Animal
Space
Tech

National Park Attendance Rising in Poorer Countries

Emily Sohn, Discovery News

Growing numbers of people are birding, walking and swimming with their kids in the local creek, she said. Voters continue to support initiatives that fund parkland. And millions of dollars are spent each year to protect open spaces.

"All kinds of different people use open spaces in different ways and express their love of nature in different ways," Merenlender said. "I'm not sure if visits to national parks is a good metric for how people are loving nature. They may be loving their backyard park to death, actually."

Figuring out how many people are hitting which parks could help officials decide where to allocate resources for facilities and how to manage growing crowds. By looking at how much money people are spending to enjoy nature, Balmford said, this kind of work might also help scientists put an economic value on wilderness tourism.

The work brings up some concerns, he added. For one thing, our zeal for nature can damage both the environment we trudge through and the economics of the places we visit -- if the money we spend goes into a travel agent's pocket instead of into the local community.

"Nature tourism isn't unequivocally good news for nature," Balmford said. Still, the fact that people continue to love nature is a welcomed sign in light of other, more negative reports.

"If we're not careful, we could write a premature obituary for nature," he said. "That would not be a good idea."

Related Links:

HowStuffWorks.com: U.S. National Parks

TreeHugger: Ken Burns Films America’s Best Idea: National Parks

U.S. National Park Service

Next »21 « Previous

National Park Attendance Rising in Poorer Countries

Top Stories Today