Connecting Past and Present

April 19, 2022 By: Elizabeth Beattie

1. George Wuerthner. “Yellowstone National Park at 150: Still a Remarkable Achievement”, National Parks Traveller. Accessed April 7, 2022. https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2022/04/yellowstone-150-still-remarkable-achievement

Yellowstone National Park was the first National Park in the world, born in 1872, but it was not originally a remarkable conservation achievement. Many Aboriginal and Euro-Americans in Yellowstone (and several other parks such as Banff National Park) were removed and in conflict with urban conservationists because governments were more interested in game, sport hunting, and tourism for the wealthy than ensuring proper conservation. The original thought to create a National Park was brilliant and evolutionary but was just executed poorly. Over time, though, it has given great advances in ecological research and knowledge, but because Yellowstone was known as the last haven for wildlife, a lot of recovering of endangered species occurred which in turn created overpopulation because of poor conservation planning and execution. Overall, Yellowstone was an amazing establishment just as this media source has stated, but should have been approached much differently, just like most ecological and climate aspects of our planet should be.

2. Harry Cockburn, “Rewild national parks to tackle climate and biodiversity crisis, government told”, Independent, June 9, 2021. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/rewilding-national-parks-biodiversity-crisis-b1862022.html

This media story connects well to the interrelations between governments, organizations, and citizens. UK’s national parks are badly depleted and need action taken immediately to re-wild it, especially to tackle climate change. National Parks were originally created do conserve nature and keep a balance among environments, but the UK has failed to do this. Park creation was supposed to preserve and protect wild nature from our exploitation, but this media story is clearly outlying that UK has not followed the same road as other National Parks such as Banff National Park. To alter the dreadful state of UK national parks is for certain laws to come into place, be removed, or change. One major organization and many civilians are on the job at pressuring government to re-wild UK and reverse the collapse in its biodiversity.