With the arrival of the Serviceâs centennial anniversary in just eight years, the George Wright Society has launched a series of essays in its magazine in which writers are looking at the agencyâs future through âserious reflection on critical park-related issues across the entire spectrum of cultural and natural resource disciplines.â
In September, 2007, InsideNPS carried a summary and link to the first essay in the series, an article by retired NPS chief historian Dwight T. Pitcaithley entitled âOn the Brink of Greatness: National Parks and the Next Century.â This was followed by:
An article by the late Yale historian Robin Winks on the evolution and meaning of the Organic Act (December, 2007).
An essay on civic engagement by Edward T. Linenthal, professor of history at Indiana University and editor of the Journal of American History (May, 2008).
An article on âreassessing the Service and the Systemâ by Janet McDonnell, the NPS bureau historian from 2000 to 2007 (September, 2008).
The general thrust of the current article on ocean parks, written by retired NPS marine scientist Gary Davis, can be found in its concluding paragraph:
âTo preserve options for future generations of humans to enjoy unimpaired wild life in ocean national parksâ¦, we must now: (1) care for all wild life in existing ocean parks by extending the same protections national parks afford life on land to life in the sea; (2) make coastal parks ecologically whole by adding submerged lands adjacent to coastal watersheds in those places where park boundaries stop at the water line or reach less than a mile from shore, effectively denying park wild life access to critical habitat; and (3) join efforts of the national park system, NOAA sanctuaries and estuarine research reserves, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service national wildlife refuge system, states, territories, and tribes to design and implement a cooperative national system of marine protected areas that builds on existing sites and fills the gaps in biogeographic and functional designations needed to meet the nationâs needs.â
Davisâ article can be found in this edition of the George Wright Forum. The link is http://www.georgewright.org/nps2016.html . You can click on either HTML or PDF versions, and can also find links to the previous essays there.
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