00:00:06 One of the things that makes our parks so wonderful is that they are places that stay the same in a changing world.

00:00:15 There's a real basic, almost spiritual effect that you have, that you acquire when you see these things.

00:00:22 Life is very, very hectic. I come out here, there's peace, there's nature. I feel more alive.

00:00:31 Your first reaction is, wow! And you feel very, very small and in awe of what's going on.

00:00:38 I think about somebody like Theodore Roosevelt standing here 80 years ago and looking out over this and saying,

00:00:44 Man cannot improve upon this. Leave it as it is.

00:00:47 We, as Americans, are blessed with the finest park system in the world.

00:01:02 We had the first national park. Today, though, all those parks are threatened in ways that are unimaginable for many of us as private citizens.

00:01:09 Ways in which government is often the source of the problem.

00:01:11 The National Parks and Conservation Association has been fighting these problems and is being more and more successful.

00:01:18 And our success is in large measure due to the commitment of our private citizen members.

00:01:23 With over 360 units in the national park system, protecting the parks is a big job.

00:01:30 Headquartered in Washington, the National Parks and Conservation Association, or NPCA,

00:01:36 maintains five regional offices to keep an on-site watch on what some have called America's crown jewels.

00:01:44 NPCA monitors a growing list of threats that face our national parks and works to make complicated federal laws make sense.

00:01:53 NPCA regularly reports the results of its work to its 300,000 members and to the public at large.

00:01:59 What is the position of our regional directors? Have you talked to them recently about issues they're faced with about development around the parks?

00:02:07 Well, there's a steady stream of external boundary problems that are threatening the parks.

00:02:14 One of the increasingly serious problems facing our parks is that they are viewed as places for profit rather than places for preservation.

00:02:24 The giant big-screen theater here at Zion is an example.

00:02:29 The developers are proposing here on a 12-acre meadow a towering big-screen theater, which is five to six stories high, a 200-space parking lot, and a multitude of retail shops.

00:02:45 As you can see, it's immediately adjacent to the main park campground.

00:02:49 It's immediately adjacent to the park entrance station.

00:02:53 Every visitor driving into the park or driving out of the park or camping along the river in the campground will look directly at a huge commercial complex.

00:03:05 Protecting the physical expanse of parklands requires the attention of not only NPCA's regional directors,

00:03:11 but also a network of park watchers who make up NPCA's grassroots eyes and ears at individual parks.

00:03:19 People can't really envision the enormity of this project.

00:03:24 Its physical size, the number of cars and people that will be shunted off into it and then back onto the main road.

00:03:32 There is simply no way that a towering big-screen theater and a project of this scale can exist here without intruding dramatically on the scenery and the tranquility that people come to see.

00:03:46 We believe that's a travesty.

00:03:49 That is why NPCA has launched a campaign to try and convince the developer to simply move down the street.

00:03:56 People come to parks and they take for granted that the air will be clean, that the rivers will flow, that silence and darkness will prevail.

00:04:08 What we've realized in the last 10 or 20 years is that the future health of our parks depends upon also being good stewards of the land, air and water resources around them.

00:04:22 What we have today is a series of dams proposed upstream of the park which will cut off that lifeblood into this national park.

00:04:33 These dams will not only flood beautiful canyon systems, but they will also alter the very river ecology which is the core of this park.

00:04:43 NPCA initiated challenges to these dams by filing legal protests to the water claims filed by the developer.

00:04:52 And we have helped to now organize a coalition of conservation groups who will go to court if necessary to stop what we believe is a serious violation of our parks.

00:05:02 The water claims filed by the developer and we have helped to now organize a coalition of conservation groups who will go to court if necessary to stop what we believe are unnecessary and destructive dams.

00:05:16 I think the importance of groups looking at the park and then all the parks and how we manage park resources is very valuable.

00:05:23 I think it's important that we have an outside perspective looking at how we manage the parks because we certainly don't have all the right answers all the time.

00:05:41 Laura, you chaired the panel on visitor impact management and carrying capacity at the meeting. What's happening now on carrying capacity in the national parks?

00:05:50 Another issue facing America's national parks is the impact that we all have on the parks.

00:05:55 Today, more than 250 million people visit them annually. But the National Park Service predicts that within less than 15 years, that number will reach almost half a billion.

00:06:07 NPCA is collaborating with the Park Service in the Grand Canyon next month to look very specifically at the crowding problems that are occurring on the south rim of the canyon.

00:06:18 Here we have right on the edge of this wonder of the world, which people come to see from all over the world, a town, Urban Sprawl.

00:06:36 Since 1950, the number of people who are visiting national parks has gone up something in the order of tenfold.

00:06:43 Well, of course we're going to have problems. We're going to have crowded conditions, too many people in one place at a time, too many cars.

00:06:52 We've got to try to be realistic, though, and solve these problems because 40 years from now, it may be ten times as bad.

00:07:02 The parks are symbols of what's happening to us as a nation and should be looked at as we look out over this beautiful view.

00:07:09 It's not just a great place to look at and enjoy, but also a resource that affects and reflects our life and our life patterns.

00:07:21 We're actually reducing in this country our level of concern about air quality in the national park system.

00:07:27 We are not protecting the air quality, and the recent amendments to the Clean Air Act did not properly address the needs of existing national parks and future national parks.

00:07:38 If you come to look at the Grand Canyon, you're coming to look a long ways.

00:07:43 Unfortunately, the air still isn't pristine here, and there are times when some of these landmarks are obscured.

00:07:52 There are thousands and thousands of individuals out in the United States wanting to build shopping centers next to famous historic sites.

00:08:03 There are people who want to build big observation towers.

00:08:06 There are people who want to build big highways through small archaeological sites that tell us something about our ancestors.

00:08:12 We are the citizens' watchdog for the national park system, have been for over 70 years.

00:08:18 There are many issues, historically and in recent times, that would not have come to the light of day, would not have been brought to public attention, had we not been doing our job.

00:08:32 We investigate and watchdog threats to our national parks.

00:08:36 We educate decision makers.

00:08:38 We seek to generate informed public involvement in park stewardship.

00:08:43 We generate media coverage to raise the profile on park issues, and when necessary, we take legal action.

00:08:50 At the board meeting in Grand Canyon, we learned that the things we're doing and pushing for, park service, has picked up now.

00:08:58 And it's very important for us to get our members involved.

00:09:01 We have 300,000 members, and we're only effective when we can mobilize them to do what it is that we need to do.

00:09:09 So with the board meeting in Grand Canyon, we learned that the things we're doing and pushing for, park service, has picked up now.

00:09:16 And it's very important for us to get our members involved.

00:09:19 And it's very important for us to get our members involved.

00:09:22 We have 300,000 members, and we're only effective when we can mobilize that clout in Washington.

00:09:30 It's not just what the staff is doing here, but the fact that we're backed up by so many committed Americans.

00:09:36 Americans are committed to the parks.

00:09:38 We could not protect the national parks without the involvement of every member of the association in some way or other.

00:09:44 Some choose to be involved in giving us their opinions, and we annually survey our members.

00:09:49 Some participate in protecting parks.

00:09:52 Others contribute funds to help make possible the legal actions and the acquisitions and the bringing of volunteers in.

00:09:59 Every one of those actions, and whatever the member wants to be involved in, is crucial if we're going to protect the American heritage that we have in the national park system.

00:10:19 Thoreau wrote a long time ago, in wildness is the preservation of the world.

00:10:24 And I think in many ways what he meant was we rediscover that tranquility of mind which really leads to a better human existence and a better human race.

00:10:37 Over 80% of the funding NPCA uses to protect America's national parks comes from member contributions.

00:10:45 Without the continuing support of each of our more than 300,000 members, we simply will not be able to successfully fight the diverse and worsening threats to our national treasures.

00:10:56 Your financial support over the past year has been crucial.

00:11:00 Please renew your NPCA membership today.

00:11:03 Thank you.