Protecting Our National Parks is an Investment Worth Making
By Ali Mickelson
As Memorial Day approaches, many Coloradans are packing up their cars, trucks, minivans, and motorcycles for their first outdoor adventures of the summer. According to an estimate by AAA Colorado published in The Denver Post, 785,000 Coloradans will be traveling during the Memorial Day holiday, an increase of 3.75 percent from last year. And with beautiful weather expected this weekend, many of those travelers may be heading for one of Colorado’s four national parks – Rocky Mountain, Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes, and Black Canyon Of The Gunnison.
It’s impossible to miss the cascading gold peaks of the sand dunes or the remarkable Ancestral Puebloan heritage at Mesa Verde, but what we sometimes miss when we visit one of Colorado’s national parks on vacation is the public investment in the National Park Service (NPS) that keeps our parks clean, safe and accessible. The NPS is the reason we have roads, trails, wildlife and historic preservation, and modern-day amenities like water and electrical access in the national parks. While the first national park (Yellowstone, of course) was created by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant all the way back in 1872, it wasn’t until President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill authorizing the NPS in 1916 that the agency was first brought into existence. Since then, the NPS has been caring for the environment, preserving history, and revitalizing communities across the country for over 100 years. And with 331 million people entering national parks across the country, including more than 7.5 million in Colorado, people across the US are getting the most out of that investment of their taxes.
Unfortunately, NPS funding has been on the chopping block in recent years. A report commissioned by Pew Charitable Trusts late last year details how increasing funding for the NPS budget in order to address the agency’s $11.6 billion park maintenance backlog would impact the country’s economy. The study found increased investment could add nearly 110,000 jobs nationally, more than 2,200 of which would be in Colorado. The analysis further concluded the economic benefits from these jobs would accrue about equally between rural and urban areas.
In Colorado, nearly $485 million was spent by those visiting our national parks in 2017 alone, resulting in a total of over $720 million economic impact, according to Pew. Headwaters Economics also released research on federal public lands in 2018 that found huge economic benefits of national parks and other federal public lands. Not only do they have the ability to create new economic activity like spending and jobs, but to retain people, businesses, and retirees in certain areas.
That same Headwaters research found about half of the spending, visits, jobs, and income created by national parks in Colorado is generated by Rocky Mountain National Park. However, Mesa Verde National Park is not far behind. For areas like Southwest Colorado without the same economic diversity and advantages of the Denver Metro Area, tourism created by national parks and other public lands is even more important. That makes protecting these areas critical to ensuring widespread prosperity across Colorado. All of these data show just how valuable investments in our national parks are not only for the enjoyment of our family vacations, but also for our economy and workforce.
In addition to the threat of budget cuts at the Congressional level, environmental issues could also pose an existential risk to our national parks moving forward. A report that made international headlines earlier this month found 96 percent of national parks have hazardous air quality. Hazards from human-caused pollution, along with smoke from wildfires, are creating new challenges for conservationists who seek to preserve the experience of visiting a national park for future generations. And these concerns pale in comparison to the bigger threat posed by climate change. As global temperatures rise and weather patterns begin to bring drier, hotter summers with less snow in the winter, the fragile ecosystems in Colorado protected by the National Parks Service could go away without action on our part.
Thankfully, Colorado has taken steps to meet these challenges head-on. A bill to strengthen regulations on oil and gas development, frequently seen as a contributing factor in the rise of air pollution, was signed into law earlier this year, and other bills to address the problems associated with climate change and the shift away from fossil fuels are expected to be signed by Governor Polis soon. Continued efforts from policymakers, advocates, and the public will be important if we hope to stem the changes to our climate and the other issues threatening the future of our national parks.
So this Memorial Day, after you have the tent poles straightened and the marshmallows roasting, after you stop and glimpse the idyllic Colorado scenery, take a moment to remember how important our national parks are, why we need to do everything we can to protect and conserve these areas from issues like pollution and climate change, and how the National Park Service and the collective investments we make as a society create a big difference for communities across the state.
