Park Creation  Why Create National Parks?   National parks
represent the pinnacle of protected areas, providing the
strongest guarantee of long-term conservation. They offer an
unmatched set of ecological attributes, cultural value, and
economic benefits to local communities. Parklands are among the
oldest and most durable conservation tools, and certainly the
best known and loved.  National parks and other protected
natural areas don't solve every environmental problem, of
course. But they are a crucial element in a landscape-scale
approach to conservation that seeks to sustain the natural
processes that create and shape life's diversity.  With
protected areas, scale matters. Small, isolated parks may
provide great recreational or spiritual benefits to people, but
are likely to lose native species over time, and provide less
ecological services than larger protected areas. We take
inspiration from the current thinking in conservation science:
strictly protected natural areas should serve as the crucial
"core