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national park
ALAN A. LEW, USA
National parks are officially designated areas of a
substantial size, established by a central government
in which natural resources and processes
are protected by legislation. Such parks are usually
afforded management structures and processes
to ensure the continued protection of the resource
base. Recreation and tourism are often activities
that are licensed or permitted subject to the
requirements for nature conservation.
The first national park bearing this distinct title,
the Yellowstone National Park in the United States,
was designated in 1872. This park, designated at a
time of rapid land colonisation of the North
America Continent, was established to fulfil three
objectives: to prevent exploitation of wildlife, areas
of natural beauty and the environment; to enable
visitors to derive enjoyment from their contact with
the protected area; and to promote scientific study
of the natural systems and ecosystems within the
national park. These three themes have, by and
large, defined the general concept of national parks
up to the present, including parks that are
designated as biosphere reserves and world heritage
sites.
Other nations of the English-speaking world
were relatively quick to adopt similar measures.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South
Africa had established national parks by the end of
the nineteenth century, and India followed in the
first decade of the twentieth century. In Europe, the
governments of Germany, Russia, Sweden and
Switzerland had all established some sort of
national parks prior to the First World War. In the
United Kingdom and the Netherlands, national
parks had been established by private rather than
national park 405
governmental initiative �Allin 1992). The concept
was also spreading to colonised nations. The Dutch
government followed the American example by
establishing the Udjung Kulon Reserve in Java
early in the twentieth century. American influence
has also been cited by those responsible for
national park development in England, Japan,
Sweden and Switzerland. By Yellowstone's centenary
there were 1,000 national parks throughout
the world that meet the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature's �IUCN) criteria. In 1969,
a formal IUCN resolution defines national park as:
A relatively large area where one or several
ecosystems are not materially altered by human
exploitation and occupation, where plant and
animal species, geomorphologic sites and habitats
are of special scientific, educative and
recreative interest or which contains a natural
landscape of great beauty; and the highest
competent authority of the country has taken
steps to prevent or eliminate as soon as possible
exploitation or occupation in the whole area or
to enforce effectively the respect of ecological,
geomorphologic or aesthetic features which
have led to the establishment; and visitors are
allowed to enter, under special conditions, for
inspirational, educative, cultural and recreative
purposes.
This definition also included several recommendations
for certain areas that should not be
designated as national parks. Included here are
nature �or scientific) reserves where access is limited
to those with special permission; reserves operated
by lower order governmental authorities �like state,
provincial or local government) and private
reserves; inhabited and exploited areas that may
have protected status but in which recreation and
tourism development take precedence over the
conservation of ecosystems �IUCN 1975).
The requirement for designation at the national
level in the establishment of national parks can be
problematic, especially in federations and such
situations where land ownership is vested at the
provincial or state levels. In these situations,
public participation at local levels and the
demonstration of local level economic benefits is
now inevitably required to support a proposition
for new park designations. In other societies, such