Parks in trouble -- The Capacity for Wonder: Preserving National Parks by William R. Lowry

Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 1994 by Risser, Paul G

For both Americans and Canadians, the national parks are not just pieces of land but also a vital part of the culture. They provide refuge from the ills of society, beautiful spaces where mental and emotional refreshment can be sought. Lowry's book questions whether these wondrous places will last, especially in the United States.

Over the past decade, reports have documented threats to the parks from crime, overcrowding, pollution, and other problems. Lowry includes these issues, but his emphasis is much broader and more significant. The Capacity for Wonder is an in-depth comparative analysis of how the U.S. and Canadian national park systems are administered, including the politics that so deeply influence that administration. In the long term, Lowry argues, threats to the parks from these sources are more insidious and pervasive.

National parks in Canada are administered by the Canadian Parks Service (CPS) and in the United States by the National Park Service (NPS). Their missions are similar: facilitate use of parks while keeping them in "unimpaired" condition. What the two agencies actually emphasize, however, has diverged in fundamental ways during the past two decades, largely as a result of changes in the political system. In Canada, the changes have led to better-administered and more ecologically sound parks. In the United States, politics has helped spawn turmoil in the administration of the park system. Lowry makes it clear that the United States has much to learn from the Canadian experience.

The NPS and CPS mission statements anticipate the possible severe conflict between land use and preservation. As Lowry notes, if either is pursued to the extreme, the other is virtually impossible. Since powerful interests support each objective and since the parks are ultimately administered by political organizations (Congress and Parliament), it is not surprising that politics can be a major factor in park management. In the United States, the goal of preservation is perhaps stronger in the NPS than any other land-management federal agency, but this has not kept the private sector from exerting continuous pressure to exploit the parks for mineral extraction, land development, and recreational activities that damage the natural attributes of the landscape. Moreover, the rewards for preservation are not as appealing in the political process because they are obvious only in the long term and are not easily measured.

The fundamental proposition of the book is that the ability of an agency to pursue any specific goal depends on political consensus about the goal, political support for the agency, and the commitment of agency employees to that goal. In the United States, conflicts over NPS goals have become increasingly contentious and have been exacerbated by high turnover among NPS directors as well as secretaries of the Department of the Interior (DOI), which administers NPS. In the past 20 years, seven different people have directed NPS. Five different people headed DOI during the 1970s and five more in the 1980s. In addition, the philosophies of the top people have changed rapidly. For example, in the 1980s, conservation-oriented Cecil Andrus was followed immediately by strongly pro-development James Watt.

Because of the instability at the top of NPS and DOI, NPS field managers have worked without a consistent protective structure. As a result, politicians have been able to wrest decisions from field managers. Lowry describes many cases in which politics compromised preservation goals: permits issued to selected individuals for cattle grazing, resources reallocated to benefit commercial interests along park boundaries, resistance to imposing restrictions on the number of park users, and approval of questionable recreational development within parks. In all of these cases and in others, NPS has been heavily criticized.

CANADA AS A MODEL

Until the 1970s, CPS was also criticized for undervaluing preservation goals. But over the past decade a remarkable transformation has occurred. The professionals and the politicians, backed by the public, were able to forge a much stronger consensus on and support for agency goals. With a clarified mandate and more autonomy, CPS administration has allocated greater responsibility to field managers, who increasingly have emphasized the long-term preservation of natural resources. In addition, the agency has introduced innovative reforms in research, fire control, management of resource inventories, education, public involvement, and comprehensive system planning.

How did Canada achieve this change? Lowry provides a number of explanations. He points out that legislators tend to intervene less often in agency affairs in Canada than in the United States, which encourages more autonomous agency behavior. Public agencies in Canada also enjoy greater public respect. Public interest groups are less prominent and judicial intervention less frequent than in the litigious United States. In addition, Canadian provincial governments have more responsibility than the national government for natural-resources issues. Lowry points out that the CPS's 1979 move from the eclectic Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development into the more homogeneous Department of the Environment increased support for CPS. Finally, and perhaps most important, strong protection of natural resources became a national political imperative in Canada during the 1980s.