Protecting National Parks in Peril

Following the release of the RMCO-Natural Resources Defense Council report, National Parks in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption, RMCO is now working for action to protect our national parks.

Although released only recently, the report is already having an impact. In his first congressional testimony since being confirmed as the new Director of the National Park Service -- at a Senate hearing on climate change impacts in national parks -- Jon Jarvis began the substantive part of his testimony with this initial statement:

In October 2009, the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resource Defense Council published a report entitled National Parks in Peril. The Threats of Climate Disruption. The report cited human disruption of climate as the “greatest threat ever to our national parks” and identified eleven types of risks our parks are facing. These risks include loss of ice and snow; loss of water; higher seas and stronger coastal storms; more downpours and flooding; loss of plant communities; loss of wildlife; loss of historical and cultural resources; intolerable heat; l oss of fishing; and more air pollution. This report shows broad public concern over the impacts of climate change to parks.

The remainder of Director Jarvis's testimony on climate-change impacts also showed clear signs of the influence of our report. For example, the parks he first identified in his testimony as having historical and cultural resources threatened by rising seas is the same list in chapter 7 of our report: Dry Tortugas National Park, Jamestown Historic Site at Colonial National Historical Park, Ellis Island National Monument, and Statue of Liberty National Monument. Our report was the first time those parks were identified as being at risk of damage or even complete loss from rising seas.

Clearly, we have already influenced how the National Park Service is thinking about and talking about the threats an altered climate poses to our national parks.

Our report, however, is just a beginning, even though a crucial one. Now, we are beginning follow-up work to bring about action on the 32 recommendations in the report for steps to be taken by the Congress, the Administration, the National Park Service, and others to protect the national parks from the impacts of a changed climate.

Those recommendations include:

• New and expanded parks, to ensure the preservation of an adequate representation of America's best natural and cultural resources in a changed future.
• Preservation of migration corridors between national parks and other protected lands, so wildlife and plant species have a chance to move and survive in altered conditions.
• A major, new emphasis by the National Park Service on identifying, monitoring, and protecting natural and cultural resources threatened by a changing climate.
• Actions by the National Park Service to reduce its own emissions of heat-trapping gases and those from visitor activites, with environmental education displays on the actions and their benefits.
• New funding to enable the National Park Service to take the news actions that are needed -- including new flexibility to use entrance and camping fees to address emissions and climate-change impacts in a particular park, as long as information is prsented to visitors on how that money is being used and why.

RMCO actually began working for action on these recommendations even before our report was released. In August 2009, Stephen president, testified before the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on National Parks at a hearing on climate-change impacts on national parks and National Park Service management policies. Stephen's Saunders, the RMCO testimony covered some of the same ground addressed in the then-forthcoming report. RMCO is now beginning a broader campaign of working to persuade the Congress, the Administration, and the National Park Service to take the actions recommended in our report. Those actions are needed to protect our national parks in the face of the greatest threat they have ever faced. At stake are the resources and values that make our national parks the special places that Americans love.

We need your support to be able to do this work. Please help us as we speak up for our national parks!