Saifee & Shadley: Utah’s National Parks Aren’t Working
Visitors hike the narrows in Zion National Park in October 2020. (Photo by Silvana Peterson | The Daily Utah Chronicle)
July 13, 2021
Utah is home to the “Mighty 5:” Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion National Park draw millions of visitors annually.
The national park closures because of COVID-19 revealed just how much we’ve influenced these ecosystems and the cost of our presence in these areas.
Free from human impact, wildlife in our national parks thrived. However, as vaccine rates increase among Americans, so does the eagerness to travel.
With international options limited, many regional airports, like the one closest to Yellowstone National Park, now operate at levels greater than normal.
The National Parks Service (NPS) must choose between environmental degradation and continued open access. Once considered “America’s Best Idea,” the idea of what that set out to achieve grows murky.
Our national parks must find a balance between the values of environmental protection and equitable access — but any restructuring of national parks would be incomplete without prioritizing Indigenous voices.
The NPS’s Erasure of Indigenous Peoples
Founded over a century ago, national parks aimed to create untouched wilderness. But because of their conceptualization as places free from human influence, the U.S. government saw Indigenous removal as necessary to establish national parks.
Indigenous peoples’ erasure happens both physically and figuratively. For instance, the presence and history of Southern Paiutes are less prevalent than LDS settlers in Zion today. The name of the park itself most obviously exemplifies this historical erasure. Southern Paiutes referred to the land as Mukuntuweap, but most people call it Zion, a place of spiritual sanctuary for LDS people.
In their mission to protect wild spaces for future generations, NPS has ignored and forgotten the first inhabitants of those lands. They have stripped Indigenous peoples of their sovereignty, as they have no say in decisions surrounding the places most important to them. Since its establishment, NPS has decided how to balance environmental protection and equitable access without Indigenous influence.
Indigenous Control Over the Parks
Indigenous peoples deserve a prominent role in the management of national parks. In David Treuer’s “Return the National Parks to the Tribes” piece, he argues for tribal ownership of and governance over the national parks.
What that idea looks like is up to interpretation. But at its core, yielding total control to Indigenous peoples comes with the acceptance that they can limit access or engage in environmentally destructive practices should they choose to.
While we can’t speak to what Indigenous peoples might decide to do, we couldn’t fault a socioeconomically disadvantaged group for improving their economic situation — even if it comes with environmental degradation.
Indigenous peoples also likely recognize the strain of increased access places has on the environment. Again, they would be justified in limiting access to protect places significant to them. These complications, while possible to overcome, must be addressed during a restructuring of the national parks.
Balancing Equity, Sovereignty and Environmental Protection
America’s wild places provide transformative experiences, but they are only available to those who can access the outdoors. As the most approachable version of wilderness, national parks can benefit and inspire new generations to protect the environment.
Those benefits, when evenly distributed, create more opportunities for everyone. Yet, NPS serves predominantly white visitors — 77% of visitors are white while they make up only 58% of the US population.
Clearly, NPS should strive for a more representative makeup of their visitors. However, the cost to increase visitor numbers abandons national parks’ original purpose of environmental protection.
Additionally, open access doesn’t allow Indigenous peoples, assuming they’re given ownership over the parks, to determine how many people can enter. Prioritizing equitable access should be a goal of a restructured national parks system, but a solution that works well with tribal sovereignty and environmental protection will be difficult to find.
Likewise, environmental protections in national parks limit access and tribal sovereignty. However, compromising on those protections puts our planet at risk.
National parks serve as places to preserve biodiversity and increase climate resilience. Because of the unique nature of ecosystems contained within national parks, environmental degradation would lead to native species loss. Without them, we have no hope of achieving the parameters set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Looking Forward
Currently, NPS fails to provide adequate environmental protection, equitable access or prioritize Indigenous voices. While improving the conditions of one of those three values potentially harms the other two, failing to act harms all three.
Without action, we can expect continued overcrowding of national parks by an unrepresentative population while Indigenous peoples cannot affect change.
The hesitation to advocate for a solution, particularly among environmentalists, is understandable. Compromising any of these principles contradicts the core values of environmental justice. Still, the absence of a solution should not be tolerated.
The answer to this complicated problem starts with a conversation. The federal government must organize all relevant stakeholders to initiate policy proposals to restructure the national parks.
With so many possible solutions, committees should be established regionally to determine the best course of action. In Utah, those stakeholders include environmentalists, social justice advocates, our federal, state, and local government representatives, members of the five Indigenous tribes of Utah (Shoshone, Paiute, Ute, Goshute and Navajo) and the general public.
This problem will not be easy to solve. But if we act now, there’s still a chance for “America’s Best Idea” to keep that title.
Special thanks to Professor Gregory Smoak, director of the American West Center, for lending his expertise on this complicated topic.
Carolyn Jackson • Jul 16, 2021 at 9:15 pm
When I first came to the Four Corners more than a decade ago, Mesa Verde was on my list of places to explore. It was disappointing to see how many people were in the park on the day we first visited, and we elected to go on a short excursion to see how people lived there. Our guide was a white American retiree who told us about the use of yucca in the lives of ancient Puebloans and how they moved from site to site. What I remember most was his repartee, which was not only racist but sexist with corny jokes in search of an easy laugh.
It was clear to me then (the tail end of the administration of George W. Bush) that the national parks were not adequately funded if they had to depend on volunteers like that one to educate people about how early peoples lived on this land. He confided that he and his wife were provided with a place to live (I think they had a camper, but I’m not totally sure) and some sort of meal arrangement in return for their services. While I know there must be jobs that volunteers can do with very little training, this was not one of them.
In my opinion, the parks service needs to be reorganized in collaboration with Native peoples so that they accurately portray Native cultures. Right now, not too far from Mesa Verde is a huge casino operated by the Ute Mountain Utes, whom I believe lived on Mesa Verde prior to its development by the NPS. They are not descended from people we refer to as Anasazi (ancient enemy in Navajo, or Dine) But employment of local Native peoples would not only allow them to share in telling the history of ancient inhabitants and their own culture but boost their economic status.
Each national park is uniquely situated, and each of them has features that need protection which can only be helped by our respect for the cultures that produced them. It is a great start on this orientation to have Deb Haaland as our Secretary of Interior. I hope she will start some sort of collaborative effort to guide the future of the established parks while working to assure that Bears Ears is restored to its initial boundaries and maybe even enlarged. Sadly, the internet has only whetted the appetite of international pot hunters, and these lands need constant protection in order to assure they are not looted. And we who immigrated here or descended from immigrants need to educate ourselves about the deep history of our continent.
Bob Becker • Jul 15, 2021 at 11:32 pm
At Mesa Verde NP, indigenous people are absolutely NOT erased by the NPS. The history an life of the ancient puebloans are central to the visitor experience there, and their descendants (from the modern pueblos) play an active and important part in the park’s management. So too do Native Americans play an active part in deciding management policies for near-by Bears Ears Nat Mon. The article re:the NPS is too narrowly focused and one-sicded. As for handing ownership and full management of the National Parks to Native Americans — absolutely not. These are NATIONAL Parks, not tribal parks, and should absolutely should remain so.
Mustufa T Saifee • Jul 14, 2021 at 3:31 pm
The three problems facing the geo, socio environmental issues are difficult to solve as they compete with one another. Something has to give…..I would give up the equitable visitation rights to national parks in an attempt to protect the environment which to me is the foremost of the concerns.