National Parks: Park Service Needs Better Information to Preserve and
Protect Resources (Testimony, 02/27/97, GAO/T-RCED-97-76).
GAO discussed its views on the National Park Service's (NPS) knowledge
of the condition of the resources that the agency is entrusted to
protect within the National Park System.
GAO noted that: (1) GAO's work has shown that although NPS acknowledges,
and its policies emphasize, the importance of managing parks on the
basis of sound scientific information about resources, today such
information is seriously deficient; (2) frequently, baseline information
about natural and cultural resources is incomplete or nonexistent,
making it difficult for park managers to have a clear knowledge about
what condition the resources are in and whether the condition of those
resources is deteriorating, improving, or staying the same; (3) at the
same time, many of these park resources face significant threats,
ranging from air pollution, to vandalism, to the development of nearby
land; (4) however, even when these threats are known, NPS has limited
scientific knowledge about the severity of them and their impact on
affected resources; (5) these concerns are not new to NPS, and in fact,
the agency has taken steps to improve the situation; (6) however,
because of limited funds and other competing needs that must be
completed, NPS has made relatively limited progress to correct this
deficiency of information; (7) there is no doubt that it will cost money
to make more substantial progress in improving the scientific knowledge
base about park resources; (8) dealing with this challenge will require
NPS, the administration, and the Congress to make difficult choices
involving how parks are funded and managed; and (9) however, without
such an improvement, NPS will be hindered in its ability to make good
management decisions aimed at preserving and protecting the resources
entrusted to it.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: T-RCED-97-76
TITLE: National Parks: Park Service Needs Better Information to
Preserve and Protect Resources
DATE: 02/27/97
SUBJECT: National parks
Land management
Conservation
Natural resources
Environmental research
Historic preservation
National historic sites
Environmental monitoring
Data collection
National recreation areas
IDENTIFIER: National Park System
Yellowstone National Park (WY)
Yosemite National Park (CA)
Gateway National Recreation Area (NY)
Arches National Park (UT)
Mt. Rushmore National Park (SD)
Glacier National Park (MT)
Antietam National Battlefield (MD)
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site (PA)
Padre Island National Seashore (TX)
Redwood National Park (CA)
Crater Lake National Park (OR)
******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a **
** GAO report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter **
** titles, headings, and bullets are preserved. Major **
** divisions and subdivisions of the text, such as Chapters, **
** Sections, and Appendixes, are identified by double and **
** single lines. The numbers on the right end of these lines **
** indicate the position of each of the subsections in the **
** document outline. These numbers do NOT correspond with the **
** page numbers of the printed product. **
** **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but **
** may not resemble those in the printed version. **
** **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed **
** document's contents. **
** **
** A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO **
** Document Distribution Center. For further details, please **
** send an e-mail message to: **
** **
** **
** **
** with the message 'info' in the body. **
******************************************************************
Cover
================================================================ COVER
Before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands, Committee
on Resources, House of Representatives
For Release
on Delivery
Expected at
12 p.m. EST
Thursday
February 27, 1997
NATIONAL PARKS - PARK SERVICE
NEEDS BETTER INFORMATION TO
PRESERVE AND PROTECT RESOURCES
Statement of Barry T. Hill, Associate Director,
Energy, Resources, and Science Issues,
Resources, Community, and Economic
Development Division
GAO/T-RCED-97-76
GAO/RCED-97-76T
(141021)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
============================================================ Chapter 0
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We are pleased to be here today to discuss our views on the National
Park Service's knowledge of the condition of the resources that the
agency is entrusted to protect within our National Park System. As
you know, the Park Service is the caretaker of many of this nation's
most precious natural and cultural resources. The agency's mission,
as mandated by the Congress, is to provide for the public's enjoyment
of these resources while, at the same time, preserving and protecting
these great treasures so they will be unimpaired for the enjoyment of
future generations. The 374 units that now make up the National Park
System cover over 80 million acres of land and include an
increasingly diverse mix of sites ranging from natural areas such as
Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks to urban areas such as
Gateway National Recreation Area in Brooklyn, New York, to national
battlefields, national historic sites, national monuments, and
national preserves.
Over the years, in response to a variety of concerns raised by this
Subcommittee and other congressional committees, we have reported on
several aspects of resource management within the National Park
Service. My testimony today is based primarily on the findings of
three recent reports,\1 which generally focused on what the Park
Service knows about the condition of the resources entrusted to it.
In brief, Mr. Chairman, our work has shown that although the
National Park Service acknowledges, and its policies emphasize, the
importance of managing parks on the basis of sound scientific
information about resources, today such information is seriously
deficient. Frequently, baseline information about natural and
cultural resources is incomplete or nonexistent, making it difficult
for park managers to have clear knowledge about what condition the
resources are in and whether the condition of those resources is
deteriorating, improving, or staying the same. At the same time,
many of these park resources face significant threats, ranging from
air pollution, to vandalism, to the development of nearby land.
However, even when these threats are known, the Park Service has
limited scientific knowledge about the severity of them and their
impact on affected resources. These concerns are not new to the Park
Service, and, in fact, the agency has taken steps to improve the
situation. However, because of limited funds and other competing
needs that must be completed, the Park Service has made relatively
limited progress to correct this deficiency of information. There is
no doubt that it will cost money to make more substantial progress in
improving the scientific knowledge base about park resources.
Dealing with this challenge will require the Park Service, the
administration, and the Congress to make difficult choices involving
how parks are funded and managed. However, without such an
improvement, the Park Service will be hindered in its ability to make
good management decisions aimed at preserving and protecting the
resources entrusted to it.
--------------------
\1 National Park Service: Activities Outside Park Borders Have
Caused Damage to Resources and Will Likely Cause More
(GAO/RCED-94-59, Jan. 3, 1994), National Parks: Difficult Choices
Need to Be Made About the Future of the Parks (GAO/RCED-95-238, Aug.
30, 1995), and National Park Service: Activities Within Park Borders
Have Caused Damage to Resources (GAO/RCED-96-202, Aug. 23, 1996).
INFORMATION ABOUT PARK
RESOURCES IS ESSENTIAL FOR
EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
The National Park System is one of the most visible symbols of who we
are as a land and a people. As the manager of this system, the
National Park Service is caretaker of many of the nation's most
precious natural and cultural resources, ranging from the fragile
ecosystems of Arches National Park in Utah to the historic structures
of Philadelphia's Independence Hall and the granite faces of Mount
Rushmore in South Dakota.
Over the past 30 years, more than a dozen major studies of the
National Park System by independent experts as well as the Park
Service itself have pointed out the importance of guiding resource
management through the systematic collection of data--sound
scientific knowledge. The recurring theme in these studies has been
that to manage parks effectively, managers need information that
allows for the detection and mitigation of threats and damaging
changes to resources. Scientific data can inform managers, in
objective and measurable terms, of the current condition and trends
of park resources. Furthermore, the data allow managers to make
resource management decisions based on measurable indicators rather
than relying on judgment or general impressions.
Managing with scientific data involves both collecting baseline data
about resources and monitoring their condition over time. Park
Service policy calls for managing parks on this basis, and park
officials have told us that without such information, damage to key
resources may go undetected until it is so obvious that correcting
the problem is extremely expensive--or worse yet, impossible.
Without sufficient information depicting the condition and trends of
park resources, the Park Service cannot adequately perform its
mission of preserving and protecting these resources.
INFORMATION ON THE CONDITION OF
MANY PARK RESOURCES IS
INSUFFICIENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2
While acknowledging the importance of obtaining information on the
condition of park resources, the Park Service has made only limited
progress in developing it. Our reviews have found that information
about many cultural and natural resources is insufficient or absent
altogether. This was particularly true for park units that feature
natural resources, such as Yosemite and Glacier National Parks. I
would like to talk about a few examples of the actual impact of not
having information on the condition of park resources, as presented
in our 1995 report.\2
--------------------
\2 Appendix I lists the 12 park units we visited while conducting
this review. These units represent a cross section of the units
within the park system. However, because they are not a randomly
drawn sample of all park units, they may not be representative of the
system as a whole.
CULTURAL RESOURCES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2.1
Generally, managers at culturally oriented parks, such as Antietam
National Battlefield in Maryland or Hopewell Furnace National
Historic Site in Pennsylvania, have a greater knowledge of their
resources than managers of parks that feature natural resources.
Nonetheless, the location and status of many cultural
resources--especially archaeological resources--were largely unknown.
For example, at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, an 850-acre
park that depicts a portion of the nation's early industrial
development, the Park Service has never conducted a complete
archaeological survey, though the site has been in the park system
since 1938. A park official said that without comprehensive
inventory and monitoring information, it is difficult to determine
whether the best management decisions about resources are being made.
The situation was the same at large parks established primarily for
their scenic beauty, which often have cultural resources as well.
For example, at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, managers
reported that the condition of more than 90 percent of the identified
sites with cultural resources was unknown. Cultural resources in
this park include buildings and industrial artifacts that existed
prior to the formation of the park. In our work, we found that many
of these sites and structures have already been damaged, and many of
the remaining structures have deteriorated into the surrounding
landscape.
The tragedy of not having sufficient information about the condition
and trends of park resources is that when cultural resources, like
those at Hopewell Furnace and Shenandoah National Park, are
permanently damaged, they are lost to the nation forever. Under
these circumstances, the Park Service's mission of preserving these
resources for the enjoyment of future generations is seriously
impaired.
NATURAL RESOURCES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2.2
Compared with the situation for cultural resources, at the parks we
visited that showcase natural resources, even less was known about
the condition and trends that are occurring to natural resources over
time. For example:
-- At California's Yosemite National Park, officials told us that
virtually nothing was known about the types or numbers of species
inhabiting the park, including fish, birds, and such mammals as
badgers, river otters, wolverines, and red foxes.
-- At Montana's Glacier National Park, officials said most
wildlife-monitoring efforts were limited to four species protected
under the Endangered Species Act.
-- At Padre Island National Seashore in Texas, officials said they
lacked detailed data about such categories of wildlife as reptiles
and amphibians as well as mammals such as deer and bobcats. Park
managers told us that--except for certain endangered species, such as
sea turtles--they had inadequate knowledge about whether the
condition of wildlife was improving, declining, or staying the same.
This lack of inventory and monitoring information affects not only
what is known about park resources, but also the ability to assess
the effect of management decisions. After 70 years of stocking
nonnative fish in various lakes and waterways in Yosemite, for
example, park officials realized that more harm than good had
resulted. Nonnative fish outnumber native rainbow trout by a 4-to-1
margin, and the stocking reduced the numbers of at least one
federally protected species (the mountain yellow-legged frog).
INFORMATION ON THREATS TO PARK
RESOURCES IS ALSO LIMITED
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3
The Park Service's lack of information on the condition of the vast
array of resources it must manage becomes even more significant when
one considers the fact that many known threats exist that can
adversely affect these resources. Since at least 1980, the Park
Service has begun to identify threats to its resources, such as air
and water pollution or vandalism, and to develop approaches for
dealing with them.\3 However, our recent reviews have found that
sound scientific information on the extent and severity of these
threats is limited. Yet preventing or mitigating these threats and
their impact is at the core of the agency's mission to preserve and
protect the parks' resources.
We have conducted two recent reviews of threats to the parks,
examining external threats in 1994 and internal threats in 1996.
Threats that originate outside of a park are termed external and
include such things as off-site pollution, the sound of airplanes
flying overhead, and the sight of urban encroachment. Protecting
park resources from the damage resulting from external threats is
difficult because these threats are, by their nature, beyond the
direct control of the Park Service. Threats that originate within a
park are termed internal and include such activities as heavy
visitation, the impact of private inholdings within park grounds, and
vandalism. In our nationwide survey of park managers, they
identified more than 600 external threats, and in a narrower review
at just eight park units, managers identified more than 100 internal
threats.\4 A dominant theme in both reports was that managers did not
have adequate information to determine the impact of these threats
and correctly identify their source. For the most part, park
managers said they relied on judgment, coupled with limited
scientific data, to make these determinations.
For some types of damage, such as the defacement of archaeological
sites, observation and judgment may provide ample information to
substantiate the extent of the damage. But for many other types of
damage, Park Service officials agree that observation and judgment
are not enough. Scientific research will generally provide better
evidence about the types and severity of damage occurring and any
trends in the severity of the threats. Scientific research also
generally provides a more reliable guide for mitigating threats.
Two examples will help illustrate this point. In California's
Redwood National Park, scientific information about resource damage
is helping mitigation efforts. Scientists used research data that
had been collected over a period of time to determine the extent to
which damage occurring to trees, fish, and other resources could be
attributed to erosion from logging and related road-building
activities. On the basis of this research, the park's management is
now in a position to begin reducing the threat by advising adjacent
landowners on better logging and road-building techniques that will
reduce erosion.
The second example, from Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, shows
the disadvantage of not having such information. The park did not
have access to wildlife biologists or forest ecologists to conduct
scientific research identifying the extent of damage occurring from
logging and its related activities. For example, damage from
logging, as recorded by park staff using observation and a comparison
of conditions in logged and unlogged areas, has included the loss of
habitat and migration corridors for wildlife. However, without
scientific research, park managers are not in a sound position to
negotiate with the Forest Service and the logging community to reduce
the threat.
--------------------
\3 State of the Parks - 1980: A Report to the Congress, U.S.
Department of the Interior, National Park Service (May 1980).
\4 Appendix II lists the eight park units we studied during this
review.
ENHANCING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT
RESOURCES WILL INVOLVE
DIFFICULT CHOICES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4
The information that I have presented to you today is not new to the
National Park Service. Park Service managers have long acknowledged
that to improve management of the National Park System, more sound
scientific information on the condition of resources and threats to
those resources is needed. The Park Service has taken steps to
correct the situation. For example, automated systems are in place
to track illegal activities such as looting, poaching, and vandalism,
and an automated system is being developed to collect data on
deficiencies in preserving, collecting, and documenting cultural and
natural resource museum collections. For the most part, however,
relatively limited progress has been made in gathering information on
the condition of resources. When asked why more progress is not
being made, Park Service officials generally told us that funds are
limited and competing needs must be addressed.
Our 1995 study found that funding increases for the Park Service have
mainly been used to accommodate upgraded compensation for park
rangers and deal with additional park operating requirements, such as
safety and environmental regulations. In many cases, adequate funds
are not made available to the parks to cover the cost of complying
with additional operating requirements, so park managers have to
divert personnel and/or dollars from other activities such as
resource management to meet these needs. In addition, we found that,
to some extent, these funds were used to cope with a higher number of
park visitors.
Making more substantial progress in improving the scientific
knowledge base about resources in the park system will cost money.
At a time when federal agencies face tight budgets, the park system
continues to grow as new units are added--37 since 1985, and the Park
Service faces such pressures as higher visitation rates and an
estimated $4 billion backlog of costs related to just maintaining
existing park infrastructures such as roads, trails, and visitor
facilities. Dealing with these challenges calls for the Park
Service, the administration, and the Congress to make difficult
choices involving how national parks are funded and managed. Given
today's tight fiscal climate and the unlikelihood of substantially
increased federal appropriations, our work has shown that the choices
for addressing these conditions involve (1) increasing the amount of
financial resources made available to the parks by increasing
opportunities for parks to generate more revenue, (2) limiting or
reducing the number of units in the park system, and (3) reducing the
level of visitor services. Regardless of which, if any, of these
choices is made, without an improvement in the Park Service's ability
to collect the scientific data needed to properly inventory park
resources and monitor their condition over time, the agency cannot
adequately perform its mission of preserving and protecting the
resources entrusted to it.
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1
This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to
respond to any questions you or other Members of the Subcommittee may
have.
NATIONAL PARK UNITS GAO VISITED IN
1995
=========================================================== Appendix I
Park unit Location
---------------------------------------- ----------------------------
Antietam National Battlefield Maryland
Bandelier National Monument New Mexico
Denali National Park and Preserve Alaska
Glacier National Park Montana
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Maryland, Virginia, and West
Virginia
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site Pennsylvania
Lake Mead National Recreation Area Nevada and Arizona
Padre Island National Seashore Texas
Pecos National Historical Park New Mexico
Shenandoah National Park Virginia
Statue of Liberty National Monument and New York and New Jersey
Ellis Island
Yosemite National Park California
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NATIONAL PARK UNITS GAO STUDIED IN
1996
========================================================== Appendix II
Park unit Location
---------------------------------------- ----------------------------
Arches National Park Utah
Crater Lake National Park Oregon
Gettysburg National Military Park Pennsylvania
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Indiana
Lake Meredith National Recreation Area Texas
Minute Man National Historical Park Massachusetts
Olympic National Park Washington
Saguaro National Park Arizona
----------------------------------------------------------------------
*** End of document. ***