By George Velky
JOUR 3035
Dec. 10, 2024
Explore America’s national parks with the Beyond the Trail Podcast. This series will dive into different parks across the United States and explore things like the history of the parks and the risks the parks face. Listen to the first episode and listen to experts about how the National Park system was created, how parks are founded, and potential risks parks face across the nation.
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Sources:
History of the parks
Info on Muir
About the parks
Script:
George:
Robust Wildlife… Untouched lands… Crystal clear waters… From the towering peaks of the Rocky Mountains to to sun-soaked deserts of the southwest, America’s national parks represent a world without humans, a mysterious insight into the beauty of the natural world.
I’m your host, George Velky, and this is Beyond the Trail. Join me on an adventure that hikes the trails and paddles the waters of the National Parks. Learn what makes them so special, how they came about, and the challenges they face.
I met with Julie Fosdick, an earth sciences professor at UConn with a PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford.”
She was the focal interview of the first episode of this podcast. Our interview started with her explanation of what exactly earth sciences are.
Julie Fosdick:
- Sure. So,
um, in earth sciences we can study anything from, you know, recent geologic process to deep time. And in my work I look at long term change of tectonic plates and how deformation of the Earth’s plates causes mountains to form. I love landscapes, I love mountains and I always want to know how they form. And so in thermochronology we combine the science of getting at the time and the temperature of mineral formation and we can use that as a clock that characterizes when a landscape is uplifted into the mountains. So it’s basically a fancy geochemistry tool that we use to date rocks.
George:
Fosdick teaches a national parks-based class at UConn called Creating and Sustaining National Parks. Students research the parks and meet once a week in a discussion about them
The idea of a National Parks system was originally an American concept. In 1872, areas in Montana and Wyoming were protected and established as Yellowstone National Park by Congress. This precedent sparked a global movement to protect environmentally and culturally significant lands. Currently, there are nearly 1,200 national parks or equivalent across over 100 countries. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service, a department charged with the responsibility of maintaining and protecting these designated lands in America. National parks continue to be designated to this day, the newest of which is New River Gorge in West Virginia, which was made a national park in 2020.
The National Parks system is responsible for more than the name-brand national parks though. The system encompasses National Battlefields, Military Parks, Historical Parks and sites, National forests, Lakeshores, Memorials, Monuments, preserves, rivers, seashores and more. These would include places like the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. or Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts. Altogether, there are 432 individual destinations, with locations in all 50 states, and US territories.
It would be remiss to discuss the Nation Parks system without mentioning John Muir (MEER). Muir is known as The Father of National Parks. He was a writer, scientist, and philosopher who directly influenced the creation of many national parks, including Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Ranier, and Grand Canyon. He knew presidents and was good friends with Theodore Roosevelt. His influence on Roosevelt prompted movements that established nearly 150 million acres of national forest, 23 national monuments, and 5 national parks.
There are 63 National Parks spread across the country, many of which vary greatly in location, geography and cultural significance. There are the rugged peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, the serene paradise at Virgin Islands, the crystal clear lakes and streams of Voyageurs, the urban St. Louis Arch, and the dank depths at Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave National parks. So what warrants the significance to earn the title of a National Park? What makes them that much more important than a state park or a nature preserve?
- Julie Fosdick:
- Well, there are a higher level of criteria that justifies the park. So it has to have some sort of special, either natural or cultural significance. So some of the national parks might strike you as not as • classically natural as, say, Yosemite or Yellowstone, •
um, Maybe in Washington, D.C. there are lots of different kinds of parks and monuments, and national parks, uh, have to meet that high level of criteria that this is so special to us that we, we don’t want it to be privatized. We want it to be accessible to as many people as we can. And sometimes that gets complicated because it’s not just, uh, you know, any local person, but we want lots of people to be able to visit and study. uh, they actually have to be, uh, proposed and then approved by Congress. So there’s a lot of political steps along the way that leads to a national park. So it actually is a very political process. But it usually starts with some, um, major movement of numerous, • • uh, shareholders that really want it to be in place. So usually there are environmental groups, maybe there is • • inspired senator who thinks that this should be a land that’s protected. And, uh, it has to be justified as why that land is protected and set aside. And so you get this really neat combination of policy makers, scientists, • • um, climate activists, and all sorts of people that might want a particular land to be protected and set aside.
George:
“Bryce Sorini, a Senior Plant Science major at UConn offered his perspective into the greatness of National Parks.”
- Bryce Sorini:
- I think it’s important to preserve the environment. • • • And I also, I don’t know, I find natural spaces that are relatively untouched to be like the prettiest thing on Earth. I really like the way a natural landscape looks.
George:
He said his Favorite Park that hes been to is Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. This park lurks beneath the Chihuahuan Desert and holds more than 119 caves
- Bryce Sorini:
- Yeah, it’s like this underground cave system which it’s very, like, open. You don’t have to be like, crawling around and stuff. There’s like a nice couple of paths through the cave and just beautiful stalagmites and stalactites you can see. Tthere’s,
uh, the mouth of the cave has, like, the opening shines through to like, a deeper part of the cave and it’s always like sort of misty in the cave, so you can just see the beam of light come down.
George:
Bryce was an Eagle Scout before he arrived at UConn, and he attributes his time in the scouts to his appreciation of the natural world. He dove in to some of the similarities with things the scouts offered and National Parks.
- Bryce Sorini:
- So there’s northern tier, • •
uh, I don’t remember exactly where that is, but it’s sort of like a mountainous and like hiking type of place. It’s kind of pseudo-filamontish. And then there’s a, uh, floor to sea base, which I’ve gone to. Uh, they basically own a floor to key. • And you go out there for, • I think I was there for two weeks. And it’s like, no technology allowed. You’re on island time. It means you don’t know what time it is the entire time you’re there. And you just like fish and scuba and other stuff like that. You live on an island.
George:
I mentioned Filamont, and Bryce mentioned Northern Tier. These are Boy Scout Reserve areas similar to the national parks, but have limited access to citizens. Filamont is in New Mexico and Northern Tier is in Northern Minnesota. Each of these offer unique experiences for scouts and young people to explore and appreciate some of the natural world in the USA.
Bryce also talked about how his plant science major has changed his view and appreciation for the parks. He shared some insight into the awesomeness of the biology and plant life that the national parks have to offer.
- Bryce Sorini:
- Ah, yeah, pretty much all national parks have incredible, • you know,
uh, biodiversity. The more, generally speaking, the more untouched a place is, the more it’s going to have maintained some level of ecological wellness. And I think that applies for most parks. I was definitely very stunned when I went to Acadia. • • The amount of plants that are there that are just natural and you know, with the natural plant species, it attracts a lot of like, the native pollinators and even like mammals and things like that. So you get like, uh, I mean, everything starts from the ground up with plants. So you get like the whole landscape preserved really well, not just the plants, but I mean, like, as a plant science major, • • • um, I’m just very appreciative of like, all the different, cool, intricate plants that have evolved very specifically for certain parts of the country. And you know, even in a place like Badlands, there’s native plants in the desert that you wouldn’t expect to be there. But they’re all, you know, crucially important for one species or another.’
George:
A major threat to the National Parks is climate change. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, natural disasters, pollution, invasive species and species relocating due to shifting habitats and more are creating risks for some national parks and the life within them. Both Fosdick and Sorini shared insight into how climate change could effect the National Parks.
- Julie Fosdick:
- I guess it depends on where you are. So I think all natural landscapes,
uh, the largest threat are challenges to natural climate change and variability that’s affecting • • higher, um, • • erosion of landscapes. Uh, if you’re along a coastline, • uh, flooding as sea level is rising, uh, you know, some of our favorite land, uh, lands along national parks like the Everglades, will be underwater in the next hundred years. And so that is a different risk than, say, some of the parks that are in, um, you know, fire hazard zones where they’re burning. And, you know, the great sequoias in Sequoia national park, like those will be burned if fires continue to burn out at the race. So I think it depends, uh, • on what the challenges are. One aspect is while we want to promote • • • • • visitors and actions in parks, some of the parks are way overrun by tourists. • • So there’s a very hard balance between the local park rangers who have to manage the land and keep everybody on the trails while also preserving what’s there.
- Bryce Sorini:
- I mean, like, there’s some things that you can’t avoid even if you’re in a piece of land that’s theoretically not touched by humans. Like climate change is going to affect everywhere on Earth and it continues to. And,
uh, things like air pollution, • • • • light pollution even, which, you know, can confuse • • bug species and migrations and things like that. • Uh, yeah, they’re basically just those aspects where • • • • even if a piece of land is not developed or anything, you’re still going to have the larger consequences for things that are affecting the entire Earth. And I think those are most, most of would apply to national parks.
George: That’s it for today’s episode of Beyond the Trail. Thank you guys for exploring with me. Tune in next week to take a deep dive into the oldest national park, Yellowstone.
Transcript:
Beyond the Trail Podcast
George Velky: Robust wildlife, untouched lands, crystal clear waters. From the towering
peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the sun soaked deserts of the Southwest, America’s
national parks represent a world without humans. A mysterious insight into the beauty
of the natural world. I’m your host George Velkke and this is beyond the Trail. Join me
on an adventure that hikes the trails and paddles the waters of the national parks.
Learn what makes them so special, how they came about and the challenges they face.
I met with Julie Fosdick, an Earth sciences professor at UConn with a PhD in geological
and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University. She was the focal interview of
the first episode of this podcast. Our interview started with her explanation of what
exactly earth sciences are.
Julie Fosdick: In earth sciences, we can study anything from recent geologic process to
deep time. And in my work I look at long term change of tectonic plates and how
deformation of the earth’s plates causes mountains to form. I love landscapes, I love
mountains and I always want to know how they form. And so in thermochronology we
combine the science of getting at the time and the temperature of mineral formation.
And we can use that as a clock that characterizes when a landscape is uplifted into the
mountains. So it’s basically a fancy geochemistry tool that we use to date rocks.
George Velky: Fosdick teaches a national parks Space class at UConn called Creating
and Sustaining National Parks. Students research the parks and meet once a week in a
discussion about them. The idea of a National park system was originally an Americanconcept. In 1872 Areas of Montana and Wyoming were protected and established as
Yellowstone national park by Congress. This precedent sparked a global movement to
protect environmentally and culturally significant lands. Currently, there are nearly 1,200
national parks are equivalent across over 100 different countries in the world. In 1916,
President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service, a department charged
with the responsibility of maintaining and protecting these designated lands. In
America, national parks continue to be designated to this day. The newest of which is
New River Gorge in West Virginia, which was made of National park in 2020. The
National Park System is responsible for more than just the name brand parks though.
The system encompasses things like national battlefields, military parks, historical
parks and sites, national forests, national lakeshores, national memorials and
monuments, preserves, rivers, seashores and more. These would include places like
the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. or Cape God National Seashore in
Massachusetts. Altogether, there are 432 individual destinations with locations in all 50
states and US territories. I would be remiss to discuss the National Park System without
mentioning John Muir. Muir is known as the father of the national parks. He was a
writer, a scientist, a naturalist, and a philosopher who directly influenced the creation of
many national parks and the system we know and love today. These parks included
Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier and the Grand Canyon. He personally knew three
different presidents and was good friends with Teddy Roosevelt. His influence over
Roosevelt prompted movements that established nearly 150 million acres of protected
national forest, 23 national monuments, and five national parks. Currently, there are 63
national parks spread across the country, all of which vary greatly in location,
geography and cultural significance. There are the rugged peaks of the Rocky Mountain
national park, the serene paradise at Virgin Islands national park, the crystal clear lakes
and streams of voyagers in northern Minnesota, the urban St. Louis Arch, and the dank
depths of Carl’bad Caverns, Wind and Mammoth Cave national parks. So whatwarrants the significance to earn the title of a national park? What makes them so
much more important than a state park or a nature preserve?
Julie Fosdick: Well, there are a higher level of criteria that justifies the park. So it has to
have some sort of special, either natural or cultural significance. So some of the
national parks might strike you as not as classically natural as, say, Yosemite or
Yellowstone, Maybe in Washington, D.C. there are lots of different kinds of parks and
monuments, and national parks, have to meet that high level of criteria that this is so
special to us that we don’t want it to be privatized. We want it to be accessible to as
many people as we can. And sometimes that gets complicated because it’s not just,
you know, any local person, but we want lots of people to be able to visit and study. they
actually have to be, proposed and then appro. By Congress. So there’s a lot of political
steps along the way that leads to a national park. So it actually is a very political
process,
00:05:00
Julie Fosdick: but it usually starts with some, major movement of numerous,
shareholders that really want it to be in place. So usually there are environmental
groups. Maybe there is an inspired senator who thinks that this should be a land that’s
protected, and it has to be justified as why that land is protected and set as. And so you
get this really neat combination of policy makers, scientists, climate activists, and all
sorts of people that might want a particular land to be protected and set aside.
George Velky: Bryce Serni, a senior plant science major at UConn, offered his
perspective into the greatness of national parks.Bryce Sorini: I think it’s important to preserve the environment. And I also, I don’t Know,
I find natural spaces that are relatively untouched to be like, the prettiest thing on Earth.
I really like the way a natural landscape looks.
George Velky: He said he’s visited around five, and his favorite that he’s been to is
Carl’sbad Caverns in New Mexico. This park lurks beneath the Chihuahuan Desert and
holds more than 119 different caves.
Bryce Sorini: Yeah, it’s like this underground cave system which, like, it’s very, like,
open. You don’t have to be, like, crawling around and stuff. There’s like a nice couple of
paths through the cave and just beautiful stalagmites and stalactites. You can see
there’s, the mouth of the cave has, like, the opening shines through to, like, a deeper
part of the cave. And it’s always like, sort of misty in the cave, so you can just see the
beam of light come down.
George Velky: Bryce was an Eagle Scout before he arrived at Yukconn, and he
attributes his time in the Scouts to his appreciation of the natural world. He dove into
some of the similarities with the things the Scouts offered and things the national parks
offer.
Bryce Sorini: There’s at least three large swaths of land that were, owned by the Boy
Scouts that kind of mimic national parks. You just go there for a couple weeks and live
out in nature. And I don’t know, I’ve always thought that was really cool. So national
parks are sort of a way to keep that going and make sure that, you know, that’s an
experience that we’ll have for generations.
George Velky: So I know about Filmont in New Mexico. What are the other swaths ofland?
Bryce Sorini: So there’s Northern Tier. I don’t remember exactly where that is, but it’s
sort of like a mountainous and like, hiking type of place. It’s kind of Pseudoilmont is.
And then there’s a, Floora sea base, which I’ve gone to. they basically own a floor to
key. And you go out there for. I think I was there for two weeks. And it’s like, no
technology allowed. You’re on island time. It means you don’t know what time it is the
entire time you’re there. And you just like fish and scuba and other stuff like that. You
live on an island.
George Velky: I mentioned Philemmont and Bryce mentioned Northern Tier. These are
both similar to sea bass as their Boy Scout reserves and areas similar to the national
parks. The difference is they have limited access to citizens. Filament is in New Mexico,
and Northern Tier is in northern Minnesota. Each of these three locations offer unique
experiences for Scouts and young people to explore them and appreciate some of the
natural world in the usa. Bryce also talked about how his plant science major has
changed his view and appreciation for the parks. He shared some insight into the
awesomeness of the biology and plant life that the national parks have to offer.
Bryce Sorini: Pretty much all national parks have incredible, you know, biodiversity. The
more, generally speaking, the more untouched a place is, the more it’s going to have
maintained some level of ecological wellness. And I think that applies for most parks. I
was definitely very stunned when I went to Acadia. the amount of plants that are there
that are just natural and, you know, with the natural plant species, it attracts a lot of,
like, the native pollinators and even, like mammals and things like that. So you get like, I
mean, everything starts from the ground up with plants. So you get like the whole
landscape preserved really well, not just the plants, but, I mean, like, as a plant sciencemajor, I’m just very appreciative of, like, all the different, cool, intricate plants that have
evolved very specifically for certain parts of the country. And know, even in a place like
Badlands, there’s native plants in the desert that you wouldn’t expect to be there. But
they’re all, you know, crucially important for one species or another.
George Velky: A major threat to the National Park System is climate change. Rising
temperatures, extreme weather, natural disasters, pollution, invasive species, species
relocating due to shifting habitats, and more are creating serious risks for some
national parks and the life within them. Both Fosdick and Ceeni shared some insight
into how climate change could and is affecting the national parks.
Julie Fosdick: I guess it depends on where you are. So I think all natural
00:10:00
Julie Fosdick: landscapes, the largest threat are challenges to natural climate change
and variability that’s affecting, higher erosion of landscapes. if you’re along a coastline,
fl flooding as sea level is rising. you know, some of our favorite, lands along national
parks, like the Everglades, will be underwater in the next hundred years. And so that is
a different risk than, say, some of the parks that are in, you know, fire hazard zones
where they’re burning. And, you know, the great sequoias in Sequoia national park, like,
those will be burned if fires continue to burn out at the race. So I think it depends, on
what the challenges are. One aspect is, while we want to promote visitors and actions
in parks, some of the parks are way overrun by tourists. So there’s a very hard balance
between the local park rangers who have to manage the land and keep everybody on
the trails while also preserving what’s there.Bryce Sorini: There’s some things that you can’t avoid even if you’re in a piece of land
that’s, you know, theoretically not touched by humans. Like climate change is gonna
affect everywhere on Earth and, and it continues to. And things like air pollution, light
pollution, even, which know, can confuse bug species and migrations and things like
that. yeah, they’re basically just those aspects where even if a piece of land is not
developed or anything, you’re still going to have the larger consequences for things that
are affecting the entire Earth. And I think those are most of what apply to national parks.
George Velky: That’s it for today’s episode of beyond the Trail. Thank you guys so much
for exploring with me. Tune in next week to take a deep dive into the oldest national
park in the States, Yellowstone.
00:11:43
