protected areas

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to visit our country's first National Park, at a time when only 10% of their yearly visitors make the trip to Yellowstone.  Our adventure started on the west entrance of the park where we entered by snowcoach (a vehicle uniquely suited to driving on packed snow with tractor-like treads and skis serving as front tires).  The first thing to come into view was the beautiful Madison Valley with the Madison River on one side and great volcanic slopes on the other.  Before you see any of the wildlife along the river you notice that there ar

In the US, we have a long history of preserving places commonly special to us through the National Park System. Recently I have been thinking about the usefulness of the designation of National Park and questioning whether it is always the best prescription.

Protected areas are important to each person in their own way.  Be it a special spot, a rare habitat or unique ecosystem, we all have our reasons for caring.  While I care deeply about the intrinsic value of protected areas, I also care about the data that helps us catalog these places.  One of CBI’s recent projects is PAD-US 1.1 (CBI Edition) dataset, a national inventory of protected areas.

The truth about conservation is that some of the best work is done by intelligent folks sitting in front of computer screens, tied to a global community by a tangle of phone and internet lines, or in a board rooms surrounded by like-minded Patagonia- and Carhartt-clad colleagues. Several years ago I made the commitment to surrender to the requisite technology, frequent meetings, plane trips and long days indoors that are needed to make effective conservation happen; however, I also vowed to live within the wild archetypal landscapes I work hard to conserve.