Disturbed Lands (National Park Service) | Hacker News Reader

Disturbed Lands (National Park Service)

nps.gov

74 pointsbricemo26 comments

I wonder how many National Parks will exist for exploration by my grandchildren or great grandchildren. I've already seen so many trails, rivers, or "attractions" closed because some entitled guest (or guests) decided they were allowed to do ____.

The end result is a restriction on all visitors. Eventually, I fear the only way to enjoy the old caves, or wind-swept dunes or delicate back country will be to have money, a study grant or connections. Everyone else will only be allowed to the ends of the railed cement path.

I feel like I've seen this in the photography world as well. People don't know how to mute their loud fake cellphone camera sound or they are using the little led flash from 200 ft away which does nothing but interrupt. Even worse are people wondering around with cellphones and tablets getting into the way.

Eventually people have enough and ban all photos at venues or animal exhibits.

There's another alternative. Those attractions will get cut off from casual visits. I watched a documentary on Yellowstone where it explained most people don't go more than 5 miles from the roads at most, and most of the park is largely untouched. You'll just end up with parks where the very coolest attractions take a lot more effort to get to and consequently, the foolish people who do silly things will either not go, because it requires planning, or perish along the way because nature doesn't suffer fools.

Unless we start doing something radical about climate change damn soon, national parks are going to be the least of your grandchildren's worries.

Tragedy of the Commons Ruins Everything Around Me.

Ah yes, TotCREAM, my favourite Wu Tang jam

Probably most of them; it's more the case that a few of the National Parks are just too overcrowded--Shenandoah and Yosemite probably the worst of the lot. Although some of the National Parks do have issues that aren't related to overvisitation (Hawaii Volcanoes and Everglades both come to mind).

That's basically it - someone bandied about a statistic that visitors to National Parks on average don't get more than 50 yards from their car.

So if you want to see natural beauty, be willing to rough it a bit and go were people don't.

Of course, the most popular places are considered the most "beautiful" but that's not entirely true - and the popular places you can watch documentaries on.

It's funny to mention Shenandoah. My experience is maybe 10 years old at this point, but I don't think I've ever been to a less crowded national park.

You should check out Canyonlands sometime!

I remember how amazing Yosemite was during COVID when it was reservation-only. We felt like we had the place to ourselves. So peaceful and stunning without the hordes and the traffic jams. Truly a great national park experience.

Agree. Nowadays I think nobody goes to Yosemite national park as it is just too crowded.

That sentence you used. Are you being sarcastic? I honestly don't know if you are.

Because if you aren't, what you said makes absolutely no sense.

No people go there because of all the people who go there.

I'm very confused.

> I'm very confused.

It a very famous joke.

Okay good. Thank you for explaining. At least I don't have to feel stupid anymore!

Most of the best places are still federal land, and put beyond the 2-3 hours of hiking most Americans find an ambitious day in nature.

There's not a lot of detail on this page. Shenandoah definitely has a mix of wild and disturbed areas...

I'm kind of amazed they finally introduced ticketing for Old Rag: https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/faqs-oldrag.htm We've known for years that way too many people try to go on this difficult hike, to the point where if your hike didn't start at 9am you might be out there all day due to the log-jam of people in the narrows. Happy to see that they're improving the overall experience by putting reasonable limits on the number of visitors.

I can appreciate that the term "disturbed" has a negative implied bias, but I wish the author would provide the foundational basis upon which the reader should believe or accept this assumption. The terminology later used is "loss of resources" but by definition a resource is "something that is available for use or that can be used".

https://www.wordnik.com/words/resource

Many resources go away when you extract them. A forest has wood, an empty field that used to be a forest doesn’t.

Disturbed land can still be valuable, but it’s much faster to turn a forest into a field than the reverse.

Interestingly, terms used by developers and builders tend to have a positive bias, for example when roads and buildings are also referred to as resources and "improvements to the land". I am fascinated by how different contexts and mental lenses or framing can bias the perspective on a thing like a road or building or other "disturbance".

Maybe human disturbance would help you frame it better?

Or if you view humans as part of nature: human contribution

In the article a point is made that not all "disturbance" is of human origin, referencing natural storms and floods as examples.

To consider another perspective, if one's preferred aesthetic is grassland plains, than the natural emergence of trees might be considered a disturbance.

In common lexicon, the term disturbed is also used in reference to a 'disturbed person', as in a mentally disturbed person -- generally also a negative or undesirable status, so in that context I would agree these negative or positive predispositions tend to be psychological phenomenon driven by conscious or unconscious perspectives.

That's a fun example. Both forests and fields are known for being.highly renewable resources. With a right cutting and seeding policy, a forest can keep giving wood for ventures, and likely indefinitely. A field can keep bringing yields for a very long tome, too, given correct fallowing and rotation of crops.

Mineral resources, such as ore deposits, are very unlike that.

Primary unfarmed biodiverse forests are not easy to recreate.

> I wish the author would provide the foundational basis upon which the reader should believe or accept this assumption

What do you mean? In this context "disturbed" means "not as it was found". Harvesting trees and mining rocks is self-evidently a disturbance over the natural environment as it was found by people.

> Trees were cut... Rocks were gathered or quarried... Small mining operations were started. Plants and animals were harvested... In a few situations, stream channels were dammed and water diversion structures were installed.

I don't think the dictionary lookup of "resource" is helpful here. I think the idea of a "Natural Resource" in the context of a park is pretty specific - especially considering the remaining context (eg. the deforestation, mining) and juxtaposing it with "cultural resource".

The "natural resources" of the national park is the trees, rocks, dirt, land etc that compose the park - the very thing being protected. The natural habitats for plants and animals that may not thrive in developed human environments. The park is conservation land and the "original" or "undisturbed" land (and everything on it) is the resource.

I think the whole framing that the authors (who are the NPS presumably) need to justify the "assumptions" is a super odd position, considering the language used in the article is pretty commonplace contextually.

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