This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
On Aug. 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act, which created the National Park Service (NPS), a federal bureau within the Department of the Interior designated to protect and maintain the 35 national parks and monuments under the supervision of the department at the time. Today, there are 408 national parks covering more than 84 million acres of land across the U.S. To commemorate the day, the National Parks will be offering free admission to each of the 408 parks.
[insert_gallery]
"The National Park Service's 99th birthday is an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the role of national parks in the American story," said National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis. "And it's also a time to look ahead to our centennial year, and the next 100 years. These national treasures belong to all of us, and we want everyone—especially the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates to discover and connect with their national parks."
Earlier this year, the NPS kicked off the Find Your Park campaign, a social media and marketing movement to connect the parks to the millions of Americans that don’t know about them or have yet to visit one of their national parks. The largest advertising campaign in national parks history utilizes technology to encourage Americans to engage and interact with their local national parks, leading them to discover and explore even more.
#19 Stand on a mountaintop - #FindYourPark from the top of Mount Dana at 13,053 feet! http://t.co/qGFTruIyQK pic.twitter.com/D64AxBl3Iy
— Yosemite National Pk (@YosemiteNPS) August 20, 2015
The NPS is also relying on corporate sponsors to assist with promotion. Brand USA, established by the 2009 Travel Promotion Act to improve declining international tourism to the U.S., is partnering with Expedia and MacGillivray Freeman Films to produce a Giant Screen Film about the national parks, “National Parks Adventure.”
The film, narrated by Robert Redford, is slated for release in February 2016, coinciding with the centennial year of the National Park Service. The film showcases over thirty national parks and will be shown in many of the 800 IMAX theatres located in sixty countries around the world.
“The International tourism industry provides thousands of jobs for Americans. The national parks are a great asset in showcasing the variety of tourism opportunities to foreign, as well as domestic, tourists,” says Brand USA SVP of Global Partner Marketing, Tom Garzilli. “We want people to visit America more often and stay for longer periods. We hope to generate audiences of 8-10 million people for this film in order to share the inspiring story of America’s national parks.”
Happy 99th birthday, @NatlParkService! Woohoo! Party! pic.twitter.com/LyOE95dcgy
— Sierra Club (@sierraclub) August 25, 2015
The film also chronicles the camping trip, which set the foundation for the establishment of the National Park Service. From May 15 to May 18, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt visited John Muir, widely regarded as the father of the national parks, in Yosemite. Muir pleaded to Roosevelt to set aside Yosemite and other lands for the establishment of parks to preserve these pristine wildernesses. Roosevelt obliged and during his presidency set aside five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests.
Roosevelt said of Yosemite, "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias ... our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their Children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Giant Panda Gives Birth to Twins at National Zoo
Two New Major Studies Link Pesticides to Decline of Honeybees
30 Whales Have Died Off the Coast of Alaska and No One Knows Why
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Julia Conley
Climate campaigners on Friday expressed hope that policymakers who are stalling on taking decisive climate action would reconsider their stance in light of new warnings from an unlikely source: two economists at J.P. Morgan Chase.
Pipeline Protestors Are Still Blocking Railways in Canada, Paralyzing the Nation's Rail System
Tensions are continuing to rise in Canada over a controversial pipeline project as protesters enter their 12th day blockading railways, demonstrating on streets and highways, and paralyzing the nation's rail system
Colorado River Has Lost 1.5 Billion Tons of Water to the Climate Crisis, 'Severe Water Shortages' May Follow
Millions of people rely on the Colorado River, but the climate crisis is causing the river to dry up, putting many at risk of "severe water shortages," according to new research, as The Guardian reported.
Trending
California is headed toward drought conditions as February, typically the state's wettest month, passes without a drop of rain. The lack of rainfall could lead to early fire conditions. With no rain predicted for the next week, it looks as if this month will be only the second time in 170 years that San Francisco has not had a drop of rain in February, according to The Weather Channel.
The last time San Francisco did not record a drop of rain in February was in 1864 as the Civil War raged.
"This hasn't happened in 150 years or more," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability to The Guardian. "There have even been a couple [of] wildfires – which is definitely not something you typically hear about in the middle of winter."
While the Pacific Northwest has flooded from heavy rains, the southern part of the West Coast has seen one storm after another pass by. Last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor said more Californians are in drought conditions than at any time during 2019, as The Weather Channel reported.
On Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor said nearly 60 percent of the state was abnormally dry, up from 46 percent just last week, according to The Mercury News in San Jose.
The dry winter has included areas that have seen devastating fires recently, including Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties. If the dry conditions continue, those areas will once again have dangerously high fire conditions, according to The Mercury News.
"Given what we've seen so far this year and the forecast for the next few weeks, I do think it's pretty likely we'll end up in some degree of drought by this summer," said Swain, as The Mercury News reported.
Another alarming sign of an impending drought is the decreased snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. The National Weather Service posted to Twitter a side-by-side comparison of snowpack from February 2019 and from this year, illustrating the puny snowpack this year. The snow accumulated in the Sierra Nevadas provides water to roughly 30 percent of the state, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Right now, the snowpack is at 53 percent of its normal volume after two warm and dry months to start the year. It is a remarkable decline, considering that the snowpack started 2020 at 90 percent of its historical average, as The Guardian reported.
"Those numbers are going to continue to go down," said Swain. "I would guess that the 1 March number is going to be less than 50 percent."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center forecast that the drier-than-average conditions may last through April.
NOAA said Northern California will continue deeper into drought through the end of April, citing that the "persistent high pressure over the North Pacific Ocean is expected to continue, diverting storm systems to the north and south and away from California and parts of the Southwest," as The Weather Channel reported.
As the climate crisis escalates and the world continues to heat up, California should expect to see water drawn out of its ecosystem, making the state warmer and drier. Increased heat will lead to further loss of snow, both as less falls and as more of it melts quickly, according to The Guardian.
"We aren't going to necessarily see less rain, it's just that that rain goes less far. That's a future where the flood risk extends, with bigger wetter storms in a warming world," said Swain, as The Guardian reported.
The Guardian noted that while California's reservoirs are currently near capacity, the more immediate impact of the warm, dry winter will be how it raises the fire danger as trees and grasslands dry out.
"The plants and the forests don't benefit from the water storage reservoirs," said Swain, as The Mercury News reported. "If conditions remain very dry heading into summer, the landscape and vegetation is definitely going to feel it this year. From a wildfire perspective, the dry years do tend to be the bad fire years, especially in Northern California."
- Is California heading for another drought? - Los Angeles Times ›
- CA wildfire season: Will rain, snow weather forecast end risk? | The ... ›
- California Fires Now Rage All Year as Drought Creates Tinderbox ... ›
- California weather stays dry as rain and snow come up short | The ... ›
- California Emerged From Drought and Is Still Catching Fire - The ... ›