The Year 2004 in Review
By Michael Soukup

“In 2004 we made great progress in delivering the tools parks need to know their resources and to implement actions necessary to protect the quality of both the resources and the visitor’s experience.”

COURTESY OF SEAN MURDOCK

Associate Director Soukup and Deputy Associate Director Abby Miller pause momentarily at a February 2005 celebration honoring Abby, who is retiring from the National Park Service. The two have worked closely with each other in Washington for 10 years, helping to usher in and guide many important natural resource programs.

A PARK SUPERINTENDENT once complained to me, “if it weren’t for so many natural resource issues, I’d be able to manage my park.” Thankfully, that was in the last century. The new breed of park manager better understands the complexity of the modern landscape and the reality that managers must know their resources and the processes that either maintain or threaten them. They also comprehend that they must invest in a long-term institutional memory that will serve to educate a nation of stakeholders in whose hands the fate of national parks rests. As a small exercise in science education, this volume attempts to recap the experiences and achievements of 2004 and assess their meaning for the natural resources of our national parks. In 2004 we made great progress in delivering the tools parks need to know their resources and to implement actions necessary to protect the quality of both the resources and the visitor’s experience.

Part of the role of our Natural Resource Stewardship and Science directorate is to bring objective scientific information to decision makers, supporters, and critics of the National Park Service. This year was a turbulent, challenging one for us, not only because of natural resource gains and losses, but also because of the political context of a national election, even though the environment in general did not become a focus of the national debate.

Aside from the relatively pressing affairs of state, I suspect that one reason for the lack of focus on the environment in 2004 is the apparent success the public sees in positive trends in water and air quality in many parts of the United States. Similarly, in many national parks we see progress in restoring populations of condors, whales, wolves, peregrine falcons, and the Miami blue butterfly, as well as reclaimed mining lands and plans to reopen rivers where salmon are sure to return. Other truly inspiring things are happening, too, like the public’s fascination with the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory at Great Smoky Mountains National Park and its spread to Point Reyes National Seashore. In Yellowstone the value of a single species is coming to light with mounting evidence of the impact the gray wolf is having on the entire balance of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

A major highlight was the enthusiastic approval of the National Park System Advisory Board of its Science Committee’s report, “National Park Service Science in the 21st Century.” Among the report’s insights was, “The National Park Service has no choice: Mastering the science required to maintain ecological integrity is central to its unimpairment mandate.” It also included a positive peer review of the NPS Natural Resource Challenge program and an exhortation for the National Park Service to fulfill its proper role in maintaining parks as natural laboratories and to realize its core mission of biodiversity conservation.

Another highlight for me this year was perhaps the most succinct statement I’ve seen that we ought to save all the pieces of the natural systems that mean so much to us as a nation. I spotted it in a letter to the editor of the New York Times (9 August 2004) from the Honorable Russell Train, former EPA administrator and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The headline read, “National parks, for Americans of all species.”

A final item of interest was the calculation by the Environmental Protection Agency that as we began 2004, the gross domestic product during the tenure of the Clean Air Act of 1970 had grown by 176% while emissions of six principal air pollutants had decreased by 51%. Indications that quality of life and a robust economy are compatible should encourage a wide range of interests to get together for a new, dispassionate look at how to tackle the major challenges ahead, including those for the conservation of national parks. I hope that the entire political spectrum can coalesce around a common vision of life on the planet that we want for ourselves and for future generations too. While joking abounds about those who would “save the whales,” I think everyone deep down will be glad that, as a generation, we did. Now, on to the oceans!


Mike Soukup

mike_soukup
Associate Director, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science, Washington, D.C.

The Year 2004 in Review Introduction by Michael Soukup

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