National Parks
National parks must remain protected for as long as humans walk the Earth, these places protect not only animals, plants, historic places, they also protect us, our culture and our rights. Last time I checked every human so far lives on Earth’s surface, and Earth is exactly what National parks are working to protect, why would you disagree with that? The first National Park was established in 1872, a park not to far from home. Yellowstone located here in the United States.
Now we have 58 national parks in the U.S. you can clearly see our growth. The idea of National Parks was started in the U.S but it quickly spread, currently there are many more protected pieces of land across the world.
National parks like these are so important, they reserve natural habitats like old growth forests, wetlands, fields of wild flowers and so many more. They also protect the species that live there, endangered species can find sanctuary behind the imaginary walls of these parks.If you’re asking yourself why you should care about these parks, maybe you’ve never been, let me explain something. These parks are just about all we have left of the untouched wild beauty of nature. If you’ve never been to a National Park I recommend that you do, walking or hiking through a forest is a much different experience when you see, hear things that you would never hear or see walking through a forest near your house.
In ten years if you want to be surrounded by nature, go sledding, hike somewhere without trash littering the ground, if you want endangered species to stick around long enough for your children or your children’s children to experience them. Without parks like these around to protect animals and natural habitats those things will be nearly impossible. Did you know that just last year around 275 million people from around the world visited a National Park? These parks are places that you can rely on being wild and surrounded in nature. In the past two centuries at least eleven species that we know of have gone extinct, most likely due to human activity. Those are species that nor you or I will ever be able to see in person because the last of it? kind has already passed away.
An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year, at the rate we are going how much forest do you think we will have left in 20 years? Yes humans plant more trees but not at the rate we cut them down. This is why National parks are important, we need these places so animals can survive and trees remain on this planet long long after my children’s children are gone. Large oil and logging companies think National parks are no longer necessary, they would much rather cut down the protected forest or drill for oil then keep these beautiful places alive. These companies are more concerned with the money flow they receive then the animals and ecosystems they would be destroying. We were very close to losing one of our most popular National Parks due to deforestation, Olympic National Park was not a park until 1983, before that time companies were free to cut down trees freely. However when Theodore Roosevelt visited the forest and saw the amount of destruction he established it as a National Park and now the precious forest is protected.
National parks must be preserved and taken care of. Though National parks have a lot of potential oil drill points, and plenty of trees to build with, I think the education, natural habitats, animals and history you can find there is more important. Keeping these things of stunning untouched beauty alive is ne of the most important things we can continue to do. Please do what you can to keep these places alive, donate, stand up for what you believe and visit them as much as you can, because they really are worth keeping around.
