This week, April 20-28 is National Park Week, a time to celebrate "America's best idea", our National Park System.  Currently, there are a total of 61 national parks, though the National Park Service administers many additional units, designated as national monuments, battlefields, lake shores, sea shores, etc.  The first national park, Yellowstone, was founded in 1872, while the most recent park, Indiana Dunes was just created, 15 Feb 2019.  These parks protect a total area of approximately 211,000 sq. km, protect thousands of different species, both plant and animal, and provide for amazing recreational opportunities for us.  And, annual visitations to these parks continue to break records, with the top three most visited national parks, Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains National Parks, alone drawing 22,392,188 visitors in 2018 (National Park Service data).  Nine parks broke visitation records in 2018, and five of these broke records set the year before, in 2017.  In 2018, the NPS reported approximately 318.2 million recreation visits within all units of the national park system, the third highest total ever (NPS, News Release March 5, 2019).  And unfortunately, we continue to under-fund the NPS, and currently it has been estimated that there is over $10 billion worth of required maintenance and upgrades to keep our parks working smoothly, and allow them to continue to deal with record visitations.  As many have said, we are "loving our parks to death", but that is better than the alternative, though something needs to be done.  But this week, let us all celebrate National Park Week, and the beauty and majesty of these amazing protected landscapes.  So get out there, explore, experience and support "America's best idea", our incredible national parks.  I have been very fortunate to have visited many of these parks (about 22 of 61 parks to date), and below are a collection of photographs which I took at these parks.

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Forty-nine years ago, CBS News addressed the first Earth Day with a special report by Walter Cronkite, and others.  During this report on 22 April 1970, Mr. Cronkite said "The gravity of the message of Earth Day [from reports from around the world] still came through: act or die."  Unfortunately, while we have made some progress in some areas (i.e., air and water pollution in the USA), environmental problems have actually gotten worse, all being driving by human activity.  Climate is changing and the world is getting warmer, glaciers are melting, sea level is rising, large storm events are becoming more frequent, along with catastrophic wildfires, habitats are being destroyed, trees are being cut, and species are becoming extinct.  It has gotten so bad around the world, that many warn that even our very survival as a species is at risk.  The following has been attributed to the actor Harrison Ford, and these statements really make the point very clearly.

"Nature doesn't need people - people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings cannot survive without nature."

The natural world is just wonderful, is what motivates me almost day-to-day.  I have been very fortunate to be able to visit, and explore and experience, some amazing places, natural areas with incredible landscapes and vistas, impressive mountains, rivers and lakes, and interesting and beautiful biodiversity.  So get out there, explore and experience nature, and be sure to appreciate the beauty, complexity and intricacies of the species and natural habitats of the world, before they are all gone.  We are just one species of the millions of species which have evolved on this Earth, yet we are the one species with the capability to destroy it all.  We must act, now, and aggressively, if we are going to address climate change, and all the other environmental threats which are causing such devastation to natural habitats, and resulting in the loss of so many species.  We must do something, or this amazing natural world will be altered and maybe even lost, forever, and this is unacceptable.

​Below are a number of images of some wonderful places I have had the opportunity to visit, photographs of places and species, all of which deserve to be preserved.

I came across this information in a blog post by Adventure Journal, and found it really interesting, and fun.  This is essentially a Google Doc, a collection of nature and outdoor films, mostly shorts, curated by Geoffrey Holstad, and is available free, online.  There are different categories in the collection, including Canoe, Bushcraft, Native Culture, Art/Craft, Flora/Fauna, Enviro/Activism, and Fun/Misc., pretty much something for everyone.  While the quality of some of what is included is not great, still is a worthy effort, and just fun to watch.  So, check it out, the link is below (hopefully it works for you).

docs.google.com/document/d/1vSIbMtzB3Dxc84bEqhMfrVdWB7KNbOlt4kduRiXyI3Y/edit?usp=sharing
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