Opinion: National parks' mission is clear

Every summer evening in Yosemite National Park a large bonfire used to be built on Glacier Point. The embers were then pushed over the side in a spectacular firefall, a spectacle I witnessed many times. Yet, in one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth, something this artificial seemed out of place. And herein lies the central question: Do our national parks exist to entertain and cater to human needs? Or to protect America's natural, cultural and historical treasures? The answer to both questions is decidedly yes, but with added clarity needed.

To better manage our national parks -- the first was Yellowstone in 1872 -- Congress created the National Park Service in 1916. Its mission: "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of future generations."

Given such clarity of purpose, what followed is quite amazing. In Yosemite, for example, which got designated in 1905 and had already seen magnificent Hetch Hetchy Valley dammed and inundated with water in 1913, Ahwahnee Lodge opened in 1927, with a golf course, tennis courts and swimming pool. Badger Pass Ski Area opened in 1935, followed by gas stations, motels, gift shops, apartments, restaurants, houses, garages, all told more than 1,000 buildings and 30 miles of roads in a valley seven miles long and one mile wide.

A mentality had long existed in America that public lands existed to be exploited. But the attendant poisoning of air, land and water caused Congress to pass vital environmental laws in the 1960s and 1970s. In concert the National Park Service recommitted itself to preservation of nature as its primary purpose. Yosemite reduced automobile traffic, removed roads and paved areas, eliminated the golf course, gas stations and other businesses, and ended the firefall, something better suited to Disneyland or Las Vegas.

In Lassen Volcanic National Park a ski area had been built near the south entrance, and cabins, a gas station, a store and cafe near Manzanita Lake, where rental boats littered the shoreline. True to their mission, enlightened officials eliminated most of these intrusions. Today Manzanita Lake is as picturesque and spotless as could be. On most summer or fall days, canoes, kayaks, prams and float tubes will dot the trout-laden lake, hikers and anglers on the trail encircling it, joined by eagles, ospreys, and myriad waterfowl species, deer always nearby. To paddle here, snow-capped peaks reflected in the water, serenaded by honking geese, is idyllic. For those appreciative of nature's gifts, Lassen is indeed special.

Enter the Bush administration and its business-oriented ideology. Officials developed a national park plan that would have privatized many services, permitted more businesses and mechanized vehicles, built more roads, and lowered clean air standards. When this plan surfaced, nationwide protests erupted. Americans spoke loudly and clearly: Keep our national parks as unspoiled as possible! The administration retreated and announced "new" policies reaffirming conservation as the top priority. But commercialization pressures persist, with concessionaires and motorized recreational enterprises the chief lobbyists, helped in part by a momentary decline in visitors. In truth our parks are more in danger of being loved to death than ignored, and despite occasional dips in visitor numbers, this trend will only accelerate with population growth. Do we really want 6 million people visiting Yosemite instead of 3.5 million? Or 1 million people visiting Lassen? What's the point?

Yes, the parks need tour buses, some lodging facilities, and I suppose those huge RVs with noisy generators and all of the conveniences of home. But the National Park Service must be primarily dedicated to its mission: to educate about nature's wonders, and how our ancestors lived; to protect unique formations, such as redwood forests, deserts and swamps; to preserve sublime creations, such as Oregon's Crater Lake; and to sustain wild creatures in their natural setting, such as the grizzly bear, bison and wolf. Our parks are finest when experienced, by camping, walking, hiking, rock climbing, snowshoeing, biking, cross-country skiing, photographing, rafting, birding, angling, boating, rafting, riding, swimming, backpacking -- all best done without leaving a trace. Yes, let's strive to make this group of users as large and diverse as possible.

For anyone to argue that our national parks need to return to a better past -- i.e., more commercial enterprises -- misses the point entirely. Our parks are precious precisely because of their natural authenticity, already too compromised. They cannot be all things to all people, and we should not try to remake them into something other than the magnificent sanctuaries they are. As a wise voice said, we have power to destroy such temples of nature, but never, never in our wildest imagination could we ever recreate them.

Bob Madgic is the author of "A Guide to California's Freshwater Fishes" and "Shattered Air." He lives in Anderson.