Editing National Park Service (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of the National Park Service}}
{{See also|National Park Service Organic Act}}
[[File:Natlparks and RRs 1916.jpg|thumb|In 1916, a portfolio of nine major parks was published to generate interest. Printed on each brochure was a map showing the parks and principal railroad connections.]]
[[File:USPS National Park Service 1934.jpg|thumb|right|In 1934, a series of ten postage stamps was issued to commemorate the reorganization and expansion of the National Park Service.]]
[[File:NPS Preliminary Survey Personnel GSNP.jpg|thumb|NPS Preliminary Survey party, [[Great Smoky Mountains]], 1931]]

Artist [[George Catlin]], during an 1832 trip to the Dakotas, was perhaps the first to suggest the concept of a national park. Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness were all in danger, wrote Catlin, unless they could be preserved "by some great protecting policy of government{{nbsp}}... in a magnificent park{{nbsp}}... A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild[ness] and freshness of their nature's beauty!"<ref>{{cite web |date=March 10, 2016 |title=Origin of the National Park Idea |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/npshistory-origins.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420180823/https://www.nps.gov/articles/npshistory-origins.htm |archive-date=April 20, 2022 |access-date=April 20, 2022 |website=National Park Service}}</ref> [[Yellowstone National Park]] was created as the first [[national park]] in the United States.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |title=Birth of a National Park |url=https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/historyculture/yellowstoneestablishment.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420035655/https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/historyculture/yellowstoneestablishment.htm |archive-date=April 20, 2022 |access-date=April 20, 2022 |website=National Park Service}}</ref> In 1872, there was no [[State governments of the United States|state government]] to manage it (Wyoming [[History of Wyoming|was a U.S. territory]] at that time), so the [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]] managed it directly through the army, including the famed African American [[Buffalo Soldier]] units.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Johnson, Shelton [http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/NPShistorians/invisiblemen2.pdf Invisible Men: Buffalo Soldiers of the Sierra Nevada] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061010065537/http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/NPShistorians/invisiblemen2.pdf|date=October 10, 2006}}. Park Histories: Sequoia NP (and Kings Canyon NP), National Park Service. Retrieved: 2007-05-18.</ref>

The movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by [[business magnate]] and [[conservation movement|conservationist]] [[Stephen Mather]].<ref>{{cite web |date=February 6, 2018 |title=1st National Park Service Director: Stephen T. Mather |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/director-stephen-mather.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420181736/https://www.nps.gov/articles/director-stephen-mather.htm |archive-date=April 20, 2022 |access-date=April 20, 2022 |website=National Park Service}}</ref> With the help of journalist [[Robert Sterling Yard]], Mather ran a publicity campaign for the [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of the Interior]]. They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits.<ref>{{cite web |date=March 27, 2017 |title=Biography: Robert Sterling Yard |url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sontag/yard.htm |access-date=April 20, 2022 |website=National Park Service |archive-date=April 20, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420183321/https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sontag/yard.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

This campaign resulted in the creation of the NPS. On August 25, 1916, President [[Woodrow Wilson]] signed the [[National Park Service Organic Act]] that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations".<ref>{{cite web |date=May 14, 2018 |title=Quick History of the National Park Service |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/quick-nps-history.htm |access-date=April 20, 2022 |website=National Park Service |archive-date=March 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309170544/https://www.nps.gov/articles/quick-nps-history.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=NPS Organic Act |url=https://www.justice.gov/enrd/nps-organic-act |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421002242/https://www.justice.gov/enrd/nps-organic-act |archive-date=April 21, 2022 |access-date=April 21, 2022 |website=Department of Justice|date=April 13, 2015 }}</ref> Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |title=Directors of the National Park Service |url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/npshistory/directors.htm |access-date=April 20, 2022 |website=National Park Service |archive-date=January 21, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220121014849/https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSHistory/directors.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

On March 3, 1933, President [[Herbert Hoover]] signed the Reorganization Act of 1933. The act gave the president the authority to transfer national monuments from one governmental department to another.<ref name=":5">{{cite web |date=March 11, 2016 |title=The NPS in Changing Times |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/npshistory-changing-times.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421002752/https://www.nps.gov/articles/npshistory-changing-times.htm |archive-date=April 21, 2022 |access-date=April 21, 2022 |website=National Park Service}}</ref> Later that summer, new president [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] made use of this power after NPS Deputy Director [[Horace M. Albright]] suggested that the NPS, rather than the [[United States Department of War|War Department]], should manage historic [[American Civil War]] sites.<ref name=":5" />

President Roosevelt agreed and issued two [[executive order]]s to implement the reorganization. These two executive orders transferred to the NPS all of the War Department's historic sites as well as national monuments that the [[United States Department of Agriculture|Department of Agriculture]] had managed and parks in and around Washington, D.C. that an independent federal office had previously operated.<ref name="Shaping">The National Parks: Shaping the System; National Park Service, Dept of the Interior; 1991; pg 24</ref>
[[File:HFCA 1607 NPS 1972 Centennial, NBC Today Show 035.jpg (35a86faa2bbe433c831de71a4c03bb48).jpg|left|thumb|NPS staff sitting on the set for the 1972 Centennial for the creation of the first National Park (the [[Yellowstone NP]]), in a [[NBC Today Show]]. Left to right: [[George B. Hartzog Jr.|George Hartzog]], William Everhart, [[Frank McGee (journalist)|Frank McGee]] and Jack K. Anderson.]]
The popularity of the parks after the end of the [[World War II]] left them overburdened with demands that the NPS could not meet. In 1951, [[Conrad Wirth]] became director of the NPS and began to bring park facilities up to the standards that the public was expecting.<ref>{{cite web |date=March 27, 2017 |title=Conrad L. Wirth |url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sontag/wirth.htm |website=National Park Service |access-date=April 21, 2022 |archive-date=May 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510013745/https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sontag/wirth.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1952, with the support of President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], Wirth began [[Mission 66]], a ten-year effort to upgrade and expand park facilities for the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded.<ref name="Shaping" />

In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery and unique natural features to making parks accessible to the public.<ref>{{cite report|title=Laurance S. Rockefeller and the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission: Race, Recreation, and the National Parks|author=Glassberg, David|publisher=Rockefeller Archives Center Research Reports|date=2022|url=https://rockarch.issuelab.org/resources/39735/39735.pdf|quote=This project focuses on the links between the conservation movement and civil rights through an examination of the reach and impact of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) and its chairman, Laurance S. Rockefeller (LSR). The Commission’s landmark report in 1962 identified large racial disparities in access to public lands and recreation across the USA, which prompted the National Park Service (NPS) to establish new National Recreation Areas and Historical Parks in urban areas in the 1960s and 1970s. The project examines the history of the ORRRC, contextualizes the Commission’s work within the longer history of the civil rights movement’s efforts to desegregate state and national parks, and NPS efforts to increase recreational opportunities in urban areas.}}</ref> Director [[George B. Hartzog Jr.|George Hartzog]] began the process with the creation of the [[United States National Lakeshore|National Lakeshores]] and then [[National Recreation Area]]s.

===Resource stewardship policies===

====1963: The Leopold Report====
A 1963 report titled "Wildlife Management in the National Parks" was prepared by a five-member advisory board on Wildlife Management, appointed by [[United States Secretary of the Interior]] [[Stewart Udall]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Leopold|first1=A S|last2=Cain|first2=S A|author-link2=Stanley A. Cain|last3=Cottam|first3=C M|author-link3=Clarence Cottam|last4=Gabrielson|first4=I N|author-link4=Ira Noel Gabrielson|last5=Kimball|first5=T L|title=Wildlife Management in the National Parks |date=March 4, 1963 |url=http://npshistory.com/publications/leopold_report.pdf|access-date=16 October 2021|publisher=U.S. National Park Service|archive-date=August 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818194153/http://npshistory.com/publications/leopold_report.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> This report came to be referred to in later years by its chairman and principal author, [[A. Starker Leopold]]. The [[Leopold Report]] was just fourteen pages in length, but it set forth [[ecosystem management]] recommendations that would guide parks policy until it was revisited in 2012.

The Leopold Report was the first concrete plan for managing park visitors and ecosystems under unified principles.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Norton|first1=Bryan G|title=Toward Unity Among Environmentalists|date=1994|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-509397-6|location=New York|page=160}}</ref> Park management issues and controversies addressed in this report included the difficulties of managing elk populations in [[Yellowstone National Park]] and how "overprotection from natural ground fires" in California's [[Sequoia National Park]], [[Kings Canyon National Park]], and [[Yosemite National Park]] had begun to threaten groves of [[Giant Sequoia]] with catastrophic wildfires. The report also established a historical baseline that read, "The goal of managing the national parks and monuments should be to preserve, or where necessary to recreate, the ecologic scene as viewed by the first European visitors." This baseline would guide [[ecological restoration]] in national parks until a [[climate change adaptation]] policy, "Resist-Adapt-Direct", was established in 2021.



====2012: Revisiting Leopold: Resource Stewardship in the National Parks====
[[File:Revisiting Leopold NPS Report.jpg|thumb|NPS publication, 2012|upright=.70]]
National Parks director [[Jonathan Jarvis]] charged the twelve-member NPS Advisory Board Science Committee to take a fresh look at the ecological issues and make recommendations for updating the original Leopold Report. The committee published their 23-page report in 2012, titled, "Revisiting Leopold: Resource Stewardship in the National Parks".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Knowles|first1=Tony|display-authors=etal|title=Revisiting Leopold: Resource Stewardship in the National Parks (2012)|url=https://www.nps.gov/calltoaction/PDF/LeopoldReport_2012.pdf |date=August 25, 2012 |publisher=U.S. National Park Service|access-date=October 16, 2021|archive-date=November 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211101175136/https://www.nps.gov/calltoaction/PDF/LeopoldReport_2012.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> The report recommended that parks leadership "manage for change while confronting uncertainty."

<blockquote>"... New and emerging scientific disciplines — including conservation biology, global change science, and genomics — along with new technological tools like high-resolution remote sensing can provide significant information for constructing contemporary tactics for NPS stewardship. This knowledge is essential to a National Park Service that is science-informed at all organizational levels and able to respond with contemporary strategies for resource management and ultimately park stewardship."</blockquote>

====2021: Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD): A Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager====
The "Revisiting Leopold" report mentioned [[climate change]] three times and "climate refugia" once, but it did not prescribe or offer any management tactics that could help park managers with the problems of climate change. Hence, the 2020 NPS-led report specific to the need for [[climate adaptation]]: "Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD): A Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager."<ref name="framework-2021">{{cite web|last1=Schuurman|first1=Gregor W|display-authors=etal|title=Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD): A Decision Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager (2021)|url=https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/654543|website=IRMA Portal|publisher=U.S. National Park Service|access-date=October 16, 2021|archive-date=October 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018221833/https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/654543|url-status=live}}</ref> This "Natural Resource Report" has ten authors. Among them are four associated with the National Park Service, three with the [[United States Fish and Wildlife Service|US Fish and Wildlife Service]], and two with the [[United States Geological Survey|US Geological Survey]] — all of which are government agencies within the US Department of Interior.

The report's Executive Summary, points to "intensifying global change."

<blockquote>"... The convention of using baseline conditions to define goals for today's resource management is increasingly untenable, presenting practical and philosophical challenges for managers. As formerly familiar ecological conditions continue to change, bringing novelty, surprise, and uncertainty, natural resource managers require a new, shared approach to make conservation decisions.... The RAD (Resist–Accept–Direct) decision framework has emerged over the past decade as a simple tool that captures the entire decision space for responding to ecosystems facing the potential for rapid, irreversible ecological change."<ref name="framework-2021" /></blockquote>

The three RAD options are:
* '''Resist''' the trajectory, by working to maintain or restore ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function on the basis of historical or acceptable current conditions;
* '''Accept''' the trajectory, by allowing ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function to change autonomously; or
* '''Direct''' the trajectory, by actively shaping ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function toward preferred new conditions.<ref name="BioScience-2022">{{cite journal |last1=Schuurman |first1=Gregor W |title=Navigating Ecological Transformation: Resist–Accept–Direct as a Path to a New Resource Management Paradigm |journal=BioScience |date=January 2022 |volume=72 |issue=1 |pages=16—29 |doi=10.1093/biosci/biab067 |url=https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/72/1/16/6429752|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The RAD framework emerged from efforts by the NPS and partners since 2015 to hone a tool that could integrate into standard resource-management planning processes and thereby foster strategic thinking and clear communication about how to steward transforming ecosystems. It built on the Resist–Accept–Guide framework first proposed in the 2012 book ''Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change.''<ref name="Beyond-Naturalness">{{cite book |editor1-last=Cole |editor1-first=David N |editor2-last=Yung |editor2-first=Laurie|title=Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change |date=2012 |publisher=Island Press |isbn=9781597269117 |url=https://islandpress.org/books/beyond-naturalness#desc}}</ref> The NPS and partners in 2021 replaced the 2012 term "guide" with "direct." This explicitly recognized the potential for strong intervention at key points to foster preferred new conditions. Initially, the NPS experimented with the term "accommodate" in place of "accept." This early formulation appeared in a 2016 NPS publication: ''Coastal Adaptation Strategies Handbook''.<ref name="nps-coastal-2016">{{cite web |last1=National Park Service |title=Coastal Adaptation Strategies Handbook (2016) |url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/coastalhandbook.htm |website=nps.gov |publisher=U.S. Government |access-date=15 May 2025}}</ref> Another interagency publication in 2016 also used the term "accommodate": ''Resource Management and Operations in Central North Dakota: Climate change scenario planning workshop summary''.<ref name="2016-usgs">{{cite web | display-authors=etal | last1=Fisichelli |first1=Nicholas A |title=Resource Management and Operations in Central North Dakota: Climate change scenario planning workshop summary |url=https://www.usgs.gov/publications/resource-management-and-operations-central-north-dakota-climate-change-scenario |website=usgs.gov |publisher=U.S. Government |access-date=15 May 2025}}</ref> In 2020, the "Resist-Accept-Direct" framework was used in a paper published in the journal ''Fisheries''. Eighteen researchers from federal and state agencies and universities collaborated in this effort, which included short case studies of where and how this framework had already been applied.<ref name="2020-Fisheries">{{cite journal |display-authors=etal |last1=Thompson |first1=Laura M |title=Responding to Ecosystem Transformation: Resist, Accept, or Direct? |journal=Fisheries |date=July 2020 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=8—21 |doi=10.1002/fsh.10506 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fsh.10506}}</ref>

The interagency efforts to forge a climate-adaptive framework culminated in a January 2022 series of six articles in the journal ''[[BioScience]]''. These were grouped in the "Special Section on the Resist–Accept–Direct Framework."<ref name="2022-special-section">{{cite journal |title=Special Section on the "Resist–Accept–Direct" Framework |journal=BioScience |date=January 2022 |volume=72 |issue=1 |url=https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/issue/72/1}}</ref> In 2024, the RAD Framework was included in an NPS policy memorandum titled "Managing National Parks in an Era of Climate Change."<ref name="nps-24-03">{{cite web |last1=National Park Service |title=Policy Memorandum 24-03 (August 2024) |url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/policy/upload/PM_24-03.pdf |website=nps.gov |access-date=15 May 2025}}</ref> That memorandum also links to the three previous statements pertaining to NPS climate change responses and adaptation (2012, 2014, and 2015).