Landscapes can heal themselves if given the tools, which sometimes involve no more than removing litter and pollution. At Point Reyes National Seashore, a wetlands that once had been impacted by levees and dairy operations is luring river otters and even bald eagles just one year after it was restored.

It was almost a mantra of the Bush Administration's Interior Department: Best science will guide on-the-ground decisions in the national parks. Some will argue that former Interior Secretary Kempthorne and National Park Service Director Bomar never closely hewed to that pledge. But new Park Service Director Jon Jarvis hopes to put some teeth into that statement, and has hired a science advisor to help him accomplish the task.