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Review | This Contested Land: The Storied Past And Uncertain Future Of America’s National Monuments

McKenzie Long is a rock climber, graphic designer, and writer who, inspired by the “contest” over the Bears Ears National Monument where she loved to climb in the Indian Creek basin, decided to visit a select group of national monuments to gain a deeper understanding of why and how they are contested.” Her travels take her from Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument to Hawaii, just beyond which is the vast Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

NPS Issues Concession Prospectus For Death Valley National Park

In late spring the National Park Service released a prospectus for the Death Valley National Park concession at Stovepipe Wells Village. The concession offers lodging, food and beverage, gas, and retail at the only NPS-owned commercial complex within the park. The national park’s three other major facilities, the Inn at Death Valley, the Ranch at Death Valley, and Panamint Springs Resort, are each inholdings, privately-owned land within the park.

Repairing The Parks In The Age Of Climate Change

Climate-change driven events are proving costly for the National Park Service, as impacts from drought, flooding, and landslides in just the past year are expected to cost nearly $2 billion to address, and that comes on top of hundreds of millions of dollars the agency unexpectedly needed from Congress in the past decade to address other weather-related impacts.

Assessment Of Flood Damage At Death Valley National Park Underway

As Saturday dawned over Death Valley National Park the impacts of flooding the day before could be seen in most directions: extensive debris flows of mud and gravel, undercut roads with asphalt damage, broken water lines. Overhead, aircraft searched for any stranded vehicles in remote areas of the 3.4-million-acre park, while down below law enforcement provided escorts for visitors who were leaving the park.