By John Freemuth, PhD

Cecil D. Andrus Endowed Chair for Environment and Public Lands
University Distinguished Professor
Boise State University

Our national parks and public lands, along with their staff and guests, have no immunity to the coronavirus. Initially as the virus spread, people who were able sought out the parks as a place of escape and refuge. In early March, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt waived all park entrance fees and supported and urged visitors to get out into the National Park System.

But then the reaction started.

Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, said in an open letter that, “National parks welcome visitors from around the world. Many National Park Service employees interact with members of the public daily. These employees should not be exempt from recommendations made by the CDC. Further, to suggest to the public that gathering at national park sites is acceptable when gathering at restaurants, theaters, libraries, and other public spaces is no longer safe is irresponsible to the visiting public and employees.” 

Criticism escalated, with numerous observers pointing on the obvious problem: The dangerous congregation of park visitors inside lodges, restrooms, and so on, and outside on popular trails and vistas.

Local towns, counties, and sometimes nations like the Navajo became alarmed, calling on NPS to close access to the parks where they could, fearing an influx and concentration of visitors. And parks did begin to close; the decision often made the park level.

Staff in the parks, at first were angry at the seeming insensitivity to their own health and safety, often expressing these concerns anonymously. The turmoil was well documented by National Parks Traveler.  As former Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, who knows this situation more than most, said in a Traveler podcast, NPS employees will stay because they believe in staying to protect the resources and the visitors who do show up, do get in, and need assistance.

But all this turmoil raises interesting and larger questions. Zion National Park remains open currently; rangers recently rescued two visitors. Readers who have been to Zion at busy times know it can resemble Yosemite; it is that crowded. Yet when the Park Service attempts to explore ideas like a reservation system, they are met with opposition from Utah’s congressional delegation. Right now, however, the local communities near Zion want visitors to stay away.

The same experience is seen at Great Smoky Mountans National Park and its gateway communities in Tennessee and North Carolina. Rural communities need the economic activity to thrive, but lack the public health infrastructure to support the longer-duration stays by visitors. There is irony here.

Perhaps a better ambition than managing surges of use in our destination parks is to provide more places for people to be outside close to where they live. Spokane, Washington, is embarking on an Olmsted 2.0 plan (yes, those Olmsteds, of NYC’s Central Park, Yosemite, The Biltmore, the NPS Organic Act, and other achievements) to increase and connect green spaces. Frederick Law Olmsted himself advanced the notion in the 1800s (an era of rampant diseases ) that parks are, to use his metaphor, “the lungs of the city”.

As our cities grow (by 2050, seven out of ten people on the planet will live in one), perhaps the most important thing we can do today for tomorrow’s urban resident is to strategically add urban green spaces and trail networks. Recently, London became the world’s first “National Park City.” There is a large international World Urban Parks organization, a Boise State University graduate is currently the chair of the North American section.

The point here is to create parks and green spaces accessible within a ten-minute walk to every urban resident in the nation.  

In this time of the virus, there would be places close to home to get outside. For us in Idaho, it would also help our neighbors in rural Idaho who are pleading with urban dwellers to stay away for now. What might we be able to do in Boise (or Meridian, Kuna, Eagle, Nampa) that could help? Become a National Park City? See if a version of Olmsted 2.0 could work in Boise and elsewhere?  

Perhaps take the forward leaning step and apply Olmsted’s thinking and intentionally promote  green spaces in part as urban lungs.