DESTROYING THE NATIONAL PARKS.

The article discusses the management of the national park system in the U.S. Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. In short, this is not a policy for protecting the parks. It is a policy for destroying them. The Interior Department has already begun to distance itself from this rewrite, which it kept hidden from park service employees. This document offers a vivid picture of the divide between the U.S. National Park Service, whose career employees remain committed to the fundamental purpose of leaving the parks unimpaired and an Interior Department whose political appointees seem willing to alter them beyond recognition, partly in the service of commercial objectives.