America’s National Parks: You don’t know what you’re (likely) missing!

RELEASE:  May 11, 2007 – Volume XXXVII, No. 19

With the release of the ‘next generation’ of video-game consoles, much has been made about who the losers will be: will the high price of Sony’s new PlayStation cost it market share? Did Microsoft release its new X-box too soon? Will Nintendo’s gamble on the innovative Wii pay off by expanding the market for video games?

It turns out the real loser may be the National Park System.

Several recent studies have indicated a decline in visitors to many of our National Parks; but even more disturbing are some of the potential causes for the decline and what they tell us about the future health of our parks, society and us!

The National Park Service (NPS) admits visits have been in decline for 10 years now. For example, at Yosemite National Park – one of the ‘crown jewels in the park system’ – about 569,000 visitors came in July of 2005, down almost 20 percent from July of 1995. Things are even worse in Yosemite’s off season; there were 94,000 visitors in January 2005, about 30 percent fewer than in January 1995.

If the biggest and most famous parks are encountering these kinds of drops in visitors, you can imagine what it’s like at the smaller, less well-known parks.

The trend has caught the attention of conservation advocates as well as the Parks Service. Both have been working to find the root causes of the decline in park visitors and they have come up with some interesting possibilities.

The Nature Conservancy, for example, funded a recent study by the National Science Foundation, which found the popularity of at-home entertainment like video games and the Internet was a factor in the declining number of national park visits.

As the parks are forced to make more and more legal disclaimers to protect themselves from litigation, it’s no wonder stay-at-home entertainment is growing more-and-more attractive. At home, people don’t have to worry about bugs, snakes, poison ivy, lions, tigers and bears – oh my! Nor is there a risk of falling or drowning, or most of the other potential risks associated with outdoor activity.

Ironically, the physical exertions required by certain video games may make users more injury-prone than they would be through normal outdoor activity! But whatever the reality, some analysts believe this is all part of a much larger societal trend toward ‘safer’ activities and those that allow for a greater comfort level at the end of the day. For many Americans, ‘roughing it’ now means doing without a sit-down restaurant in the hotel.

The Park Service’s own studies uncovered another problem - they aren’t attracting young people or minorities, which are growing segments of our diversifying population. Park Service research found an astounding 75 percent of African Americans said they don’t visit national parks because they don't know much about them. Among Latinos surveyed, 74 percent said they don’t visit national parks because they are too expensive.

Whether one or both of these trends are factors, there are no easy answers. Better marketing of the National Park System to diverse segments of the population would certainly help. But the best advertisements for the Parks System are the parks themselves – the old cliché applies - try it… you’ll like it.

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