Australia is known for protecting its sea life in a 3.3-million-square-kilometer (1.3 million-square-mile) system of marine parks that covers 36 percent of the country’s oceans. The protection of those parks is now at stake, as the government last week approved five long-awaited management plans covering 44 parks. The new plans open 17 percent of the parks’ area to commercial fishing and 16 percent of their area to recreational fishing compared to the original plans formed by the previous government when the parks were proclaimed in 2012.

What started out as a small prescribed burn on The Nature Conservancy ranch at Channel Islands National Park ballooned to roughly 250 acres on Santa Cruz Island, prompting the summoning of firefighters from national forests in California to help fight the flames.

Work over the next few days near Phantom Ranch in Grand Canyon National Park will help park staff determine whether a new water source for the antiquated and break-prone Transcanyon Waterline can be found and so greatly reduce the miles of pipeline needed to provide water to the South Rim where the bulk of the park's visitors gather.

What goes down, should come back up. But it doesn't always work that way. That's what three visitors to Carlsbad Caverns National Park discovered the other day when the elevator they were in ground to a halt 740 feet below the surface.