Parks Stewardship Forum

America’s system of public lands—its national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, seashores, and cultural sites—represents one of the great democratic achievements in human history. Much of this achievement has rested on federal stewardship of national resources. But the recent political moment has revealed with brutal clarity that any system concentrated in a single federal institution is only as secure as the administration that controls it and interprets its laws. This essay proposes alternatives to managing the national parks using an unfolding paradigm of resilient diversity. The core argument is ecological in its logic: resilient systems do not concentrate their life-support functions in one organism. Neither should the stewardship of America’s heritage.