Natural Lightscape Management
A Natural Resource
Many of the darkest night skies in the country are found within National Park boundaries, making those resources nationally significant. Dark night skies are an Air Quality Related Value, as defined by the Clean Air Act Amendment. The affect of light pollution in the atmosphere is linked to air quality, and as daytime visibility decreases so does the quality of the night sky. Also like air pollution, light pollution is a transboundary issue, traveling over 200 miles regardless of borders and land use.
Throughout billions of years of evolution, there has always been an established day and night cycle, until recently. With ever-increasing light being added to the nocturnal environment, habitat for plants and animals is being disrupted. In many cases the impact is far from subtle.
Lights confuse and disorient birds that migrate at night, a key factor in the death of countless avian species each year. Turtle hatchlings are easily led astray by outdoor lights away from the safety of the ocean, and the ability of amphibians to properly orient themselves is scrambled by artificial light. Likewise, changes to cave environments can have a similarly disruptive effect. Research into the ecological consequences of artificial night lighting is revealing numerous connections between light pollution and species disruption.
Recognizing the roles that light and dark periods and darkness play in natural resource processes and the evolution of species, the National Park Service will protect natural darkness and other components of the natural lightscape in parks.
Wildland Values
"The conquest of the frontier by American industrial culture left a profound sense of loss among conservation-minded individuals. They mourned the passing of a way of life and of an unspoiled grand landscape that fostered individual freedoms, simple rewards for hard work, and an intimacy with the land that was required for mere survival. The last 20 or 30 years have seen a similar or analogous rapid disappearance of a resource that was once taken for granted: the unfettered view of the universe on a dark, clear, moonless night. Today, we are on the verge of losing the pristine night sky entirely in the 48 contiguous states." — Dan Duriscoe, National Park Service, Preserving Pristine Night Skies in National Parks and the Wilderness Ethic, George Wright Forum, 2001.
In wilderness, we preserve more than just opportunities for backpacking and beautiful vistas, we preserve complex ecosystems, glimpses of the how the world once was; and a place where we, as individuals or as a nation, can reflect upon the path we have taken. It is our frontier. Dark night skies are a wilderness characteristic, a part that cannot be cut out without leaving the land wanting. A traveler can trek deep into the mountains, yet still be followed by the glow of distant city lights. A single glaring light can reel back those seeking communion with nature, undoing miles of effort.
Wild lands also provide natural laboratories, where natural processes and rhythms can evolve unimpeded. They yield scientific insights into our complex natural world, and allow natural physical processes to churn unabated. In such a landscape, artificial light has no place.
"If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it." — President Lyndon B. Johnson, upon signing the Wilderness Act of 1964