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Not a walk in the park

[…] all parks to increase their entrance fees as they see fit. “I can’t take my family to the movies for $25, but I can take them to Yellowstone for seven days for that,” says Holly Fretwell, a fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center and an adjunct professor of economics at Montana State […]

Published on: November 10, 2009

Floating Islands, Filtered Water

[…] who is an idea guy, got to thinking about all the nutrient runoff from cultivated fields that was flowing into his pond as well as the nearby Yellowstone River. Based on his experience fishing in pristine Wisconsin lakes with floating islands, it occurred to him that islands might help solve his pond problem and […]

Published on: September 30, 2009

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea Made Better?

[…] this fall. And if past is prologue, Mike Finley expects to see a significant surge of interest in our nation’s greatest treasures. Finley, a former superintendent for Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Everglades national parks, recalls how “visitors came to the Civil War parks in droves,” after “The Civil War” aired. Couple this with the centennial […]

Published on: September 24, 2009

Exploring Nature in Cyberspace

[…] site are tools of engagement,” Peterson explained. “If the experience ends there, kids and adults are shortchanging themselves of the opportunity to get real in nature.” Virtual Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park has its own virtual activities for school-aged children as well as teachers. Since 2001, Yellowstone has offered electronic field trips—eTrips—to share the resources […]

Published on: September 24, 2009

Nature’s Lost Children

[…] that coincides with state and local standards to foster partnerships with schools. About 7,500 participants take part each year in courses that range from tracking wolves in Yellowstone (for high school kids) to exploring overturned rocks in a nearby creek. The classes range in cost and are not didactic, Harrison says. “The approach is […]

Published on: September 24, 2009
Perc

On Earth Day, Think Thoreau

[…] nonprofit groups are already using private resources to produce positive environmental results. Land trusts, for example, have conserved acreage equivalent to 16 1/2 times the size of Yellowstone National Park, according to studies. And for-profit firms are making unsubsidized profits by producing new services. As T.J. Rogers, chief executive of SunPower Corp., put it: […]

Published on: April 22, 2009

Private Rights, Public Benefits

[…] for one person, it is available to all at no cost. Views of mountains is another. The enjoyment you get from knowing that wolves now roam in Yellowstone does not preclude others from the same enjoyment. Environmentalists and economists refer to this public good as an “existence value,” and everyone can enjoy that existence […]

Published on: September 15, 2008

Shooting the Wild

[…] a new concept. In 1872, proponents of a bill to create the first national park strategically placed in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol photographs of Yellowstone’s wonders taken by William Henry Jackson. The vintage photographs left a marked impression on the public and their congressmen, and helped seal the fate of Yellowstone. […]

Published on: September 12, 2008

Yellowstone Fires of ’88

Twenty years ago, fires broke out in Yellowstone National Park that started a public debate about firefighting and public land management that continues today. I covered those fires as a newspaper reporter and, like all else involved, I couldn’t know that the Yellowstone fires were the first in a series of huge fires that […]

Published on: June 5, 2008

The Bear Necessities

Many view the 1995 reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park as a landmark conservation achievement—one that historians may refer to as the point when Americans changed their attitudes toward large predators. But as a conservation leader who was involved with this issue for more than 15 years, I view it as a poor […]

Published on: March 28, 2008