Celebrate National Park Week, this week, 22 April - 30 April, 2023. As has been said, our national parks are one of our "best ideas", one of our greatest assets, expansive public lands protected ".... for the benefit and enjoyment of all ....".  These public lands are managed by the National Park Service (NPS), and include 424 different areas/sites and over 85 million acres. The areas managed by the NPS include "true" national parks, as well as national monuments, historic sites, lakeshores and seashores, and more.  There are currently 63 national parks, the largest of which is Wrangell - St. Elias National Park in Alaska at 13.2 million acres (53,418 sq. km).  These 63 parks cover a total area of 52.2 million acres (211,000 sq. km).  And as many people know, these parks are popular; there were 88,662,181 visits to our national parks in 2022 (total visits to all NPS sites in 2022 was 311,985,998!).  These parks also contribute significantly to the economy of the United States.  It has been estimated that the total economic value of the NPS to the public is $92 billion per year, including value attributed to visitors, and "non-use" or "existence" value (indirect value) according to a paper by Haefele et al. (2016) in the HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series.  Our parks are valuable, as well as beautiful.  I have been fortunate enough to visit 40 or our 63 national parks, along with 3 of 3 national lakeshores, 7 of 10 national seashores, and many national monuments and other NPS sites.  These are special places, biodiverse, and most often with spectacular landscapes and awe-inspiring vistas.  Please celebrate these public lands, visit them, and work to protect and hopefully expand these amazing places.  Our national parks are just amazing.

A sample of our National Parks, all images taken by me during different visits to these incredible places.

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The first Earth Day was in 1970.  And currently, Earth Day is ".... recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes."  This year, the theme is "Invest in Our Planet", a focus on developing "... an equitable, prosperous green economy for all."
Today is also a day to celebrate the awesomeness of the natural world, and to think about ways each and everyone of us can live more sustainable lives. So get out there, hike, bike, explore the natural world upon which we rely, and do something good for nature, natural habitats, and for the species which can these amazing places home. 

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