Conservation & Environment

We Just Crushed The Global Record For Hottest Start Of Any Year

Posted by on Apr 17, 2016 @ 8:20 am in Conservation | 0 comments

NASA reports that this was the hottest three-month start (January to March) of any year on record. It beat the previous record — just set in 2015 — by a stunning 0.7°F (0.39°C). Normally, such multi-month records are measured in the hundredths of a degree.

Last month was the hottest March and February the hottest on record by far. It followed the hottest January on record by far, which followed the hottest December by far, which followed the hottest November on record by far, which followed the hottest October on record by far. Some may detect a pattern here.

As has been the story all winter, the biggest and most worrisome warming is occurring in the Arctic. Indeed, as we reported on Wednesday, blistering temperatures over Greenland jump-started the summer melt season — with 12 percent of Greenland’s massive ice sheet melting by Monday, beating the previous record by a month.

Even though 2015 crushed the previous record for hottest year — which of course was just set in 2014 — it seems increasingly likely that 2016 will top 2015, even as the current El Niño fades.

The bottom line is that we are being warmed globally at an alarming rate thanks to human-caused carbon pollution.

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Greenland is melting way ahead of schedule

Posted by on Apr 16, 2016 @ 7:13 am in Conservation | 0 comments

To say the 2016 Greenland melt season is off to the races is an understatement.

Warm, wet conditions rapidly kicked off the melt season this weekend, more than a month-and-a-half ahead of schedule. It has easily set a record for earliest melt season onset, and marks the first time it’s begun in April.

Little to no melt through winter is the norm as sub-zero temperatures keep Greenland’s massive ice sheet, well, on ice. Warm weather usually kicks off the melt season in late May or early June, but this year is a bit different.

Record warm temperatures coupled with heavy rain mostly sparked 12 percent of the ice sheet to go into meltdown mode. Almost all the melt is currently centered around southwest Greenland.

This April kickoff is so bizarrely early, scientists who study the ice sheet checked their analysis to make sure something wasn’t amiss before making the announcement.

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Fracking’s Total Environmental Impact Is Staggering, Report Finds

Posted by on Apr 14, 2016 @ 4:12 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

Fracking’s Total Environmental Impact Is Staggering, Report Finds

The body of evidence is growing that fracking is not only bad for the global climate, it is also dangerous for local communities. And affected communities are growing in number. A new report details the sheer amount of water contamination, air pollution, climate impacts, and chemical use in fracking in the United States.

“For the past decade, fracking has been a nightmare for our drinking water, our open spaces, and our climate,” Rachel Richardson, a co-author of the paper from Environment America said.

Fracking, a form of extraction that injects large volumes of chemical-laced water into shale, releasing pockets of oil and gas, has been on the rise in the United States for the past decade, and the sheer numbers are staggering. Environment America reports that at least 239 billion gallons of water — an average of three million gallons per well — has been used for fracking.

In 2014 alone, fracking created 15 billion gallons of wastewater. This water generally cannot be reused, and is often toxic. Fracking operators reinject the water underground, where it can leach into drinking water sources. The chemicals can include formaldehyde, benzene, and hydrochloric acid.

Fracking is also bad news for the climate. Natural gas is 80 percent methane, which traps heat 86 times more effectively than CO2 over a 20-year period. Newly fracked wells released 2.4 million metric tons of methane in 2014 — equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 22 coal-fired power plants.

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The Goat Whisperers of Roan Mountain

Posted by on Apr 13, 2016 @ 10:55 am in Conservation | 0 comments

The Goat Whisperers of Roan Mountain

With the help of human herders, some hungry goats are saving the sensitive balds of Roan Mountain.

Sixteen goats have gone missing, lost in one of the hardwood forests lining Roan Mountain’s southern Appalachian balds. Treeless and naturally occurring, the balds straddle two national forests: the Cherokee in Tennessee and the Pisgah in North Carolina. The balds existed long before state lines were drawn, but trees are now threatening to close in on them, and potentially destroy entire ecosystems.

“This is one of the least studied, most visited plant communities in the world,” says Jamey Donaldson, a botanist and part-time goatherd. In the last 100 years, an estimated 75 percent of Roan’s grassy balds have been lost to the trees. But goats, and their healthy appetites, offer these areas a chance at ecological redemption — if the goats ever come back.

Donaldson pulls a container of rocks from his pocket and shakes it, mimicking the sound of corn feed. Apparently, rocks are a paltry incentive compared to acres of leafy greens. No goats.

It is far more difficult to herd animals than it is to run mowers, but the goat project has paid off. Donaldson’s research — conducted in collaboration with East Tennessee State University — has revealed that goats excel at protecting the green alder, possibly a key species that could be destroyed by mowers and bush hogs.

The Baatany Project rebuts the idea of human influence on the environment as inherently destructive. Through Baatany, the balds are being restored by living beings rather than maintained by motors and metal.

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How to make coal companies pay to clean up their messes

Posted by on Apr 12, 2016 @ 6:10 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, is not in great financial shape. Last month, it casually skipped a $71 million interest payment, and analysts are speculating that it may be edging toward bankruptcy. Standard and Poor’s recently downgraded Peabody’s credit rating to a “D.” The company has $6.3 billion in outstanding long-term debt.

If you’re cheering for the death of coal, that might sound like good news. But there’s a nasty catch: Peabody’s financial troubles mean it might not be able to pay to clean up its messes, and restoring landscapes and repairing streams and rivers can be expensive. The company has “self-bonded” to pay up to $1.4 billion in reclamation costs at its mines in the United States — and self-bonding means we’re trusting it to do so.

While coal companies usually offer up collateral or contract out in order to guarantee that cleanup will be paid for, it has become common in recent years for companies to simply pledge that they’re going to deal with the costs. These self-bonds (as opposed to, say, surety bonds, which rely on third-party insurers) only rely on the name and financial stability of the company itself.

State mining authorities could change those rules and instead require companies to post surety bonds or set aside cleanup cash in an escrow account. Or they could continue to allow self-bonding, but not through 100-percent-owned subsidiaries.

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Tea Party Wave Washes Up ‘Anti-Parks Caucus’ In Congress

Posted by on Apr 11, 2016 @ 7:58 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

A group of 20 senators and representatives has formed a de facto “anti-parks caucus” in Congress and is waging the most significant legislative and ideological challenge to America’s national parks in decades, says a new report by the Center for American Progress. The analysis finds that this anti-parks caucus is composed of less than five percent of Congress but is responsible for introducing dozens of bills to block the creation of new national parks, end America’s most effective parks program, and sell off public lands.

Eight anti-parks caucus members also participate in the Federal Land Action Group, a group formed last year with the sole purpose of developing land grab legislation that would transfer federal land to state and local control.

“Public land grab efforts almost never rise up from local communities,” according to Jim Caswell, BLM director under President George W. Bush. “They are instead galvanized by partisan politics, mainly at the national level, where the real agenda is wresting public lands from public hands and ultimately privatizing them for nonpublic uses.”

Such partisan politics ring true with the 20-member anti-parks caucus which includes Reps. Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Meanwhile, the National Park Service is poised to kick off National Park Week (April 16 to 24) as part of this year’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the agency’s creation. Three out every four registered voters believe that the United States benefits from the National Park system a “fair amount” or a “great deal,” according to polling conducted by Hart Research Associates in January 2016. Furthermore, 83 percent of Americans say they would have a “favorable” reaction to their representative in Congress taking “a strong stand in support of policies to protect and strengthen national parks.”

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Obama’s National Monuments Have Been An Economic Boon For Local Economies

Posted by on Apr 7, 2016 @ 6:54 am in Conservation | 0 comments

The national monuments that President Obama has created or expanded are generating more than $156 million in local economic activity annually, according to a study published April 6, 2016.

The report, which was conducted by Colorado-based BBC Research and Consulting on behalf of an organization representing small businesses, looked at the economic activity of out-of-town visitors traveling at least 60 miles to their destinations. It found that the impact to the local workforce of such non-local visitor spending is equivalent to supporting 1,820 jobs.

“Too often, we only view land as valuable when it is being developed, mined, drilled or logged,” U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a statement. “But, as this report shows, we can protect the most magnificent areas of our nation while also providing real opportunities for local economies.”

The estimated economic benefits are likely to grow even more in the coming years because newly designated historical monuments are in the process of expanding visitor hours, and national monuments created to protect resources tend to grow in popularity after designation. And Obama’s monuments are already popular: between 2011 and 2015, according to the report, these monuments saw about 3.9 million visitors each year.

President Obama is the sixteenth president (including eight Republicans and seven other Democrats) to use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate national monuments. This report highlights how the presidential use of the Antiquities Act is not only a catalyst for conserving public lands, but also an economic driver.

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Yosemite Gets $15M for Hiking Trails, Grove Upgrades

Posted by on Apr 6, 2016 @ 6:57 am in Conservation, Hiking News | 1 comment

Yosemite Gets $15M for Hiking Trails, Grove Upgrades

Rebuilding hiking trails and restoring the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias are among nearly three dozen projects being funded by a $15 million donation to Yosemite National Park from The Yosemite Conservancy.

The project to protect the Mariposa Grove will improve natural water flows, re-establish sequoia habitat and create accessible trails.

Conservancy donors are also funding work to restore the meadow habitat of pollinators, such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, which play an essential role in healthy ecosystems.

Several major trails will be improved, including stretches of the John Muir Trail along the Tuolumne River, the Matterhorn Canyon section of the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Yosemite Falls Trail.

Funding will also restore populations of rare frogs and turtles, and protect the Sierra Nevada red fox, great gray and spotted owls and black bears.

 

Cradle of Forestry 2016 Season Kicks Off April 9

Posted by on Apr 4, 2016 @ 5:24 pm in Conservation, Hiking News | 0 comments

Cradle of Forestry 2016 Season Kicks Off April 9

The Cradle of Forestry in America historic site will begin the 2016 season on April 9 with a living history event, “Old Time Plowing and Folkways.” David and Diane Burnette from Haywood County will demonstrate how their Percheron draft horses work the land the old way. Weather permitting, they will plow the Cradle’s vegetable garden along the Biltmore Campus Trail and teach a skill that was once familiar to many.

The Cradle of Forestry’s living history volunteers will demonstrate their crafts among the historic buildings, including wood working, basket weaving, chair caning and crafting corn husk dolls. Toward the end of the day, fiddle tunes will fill the air by the garden.

The Cradle of Forestry will be open daily, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., from April 9 – November 6. At various times during the season, living history volunteers will demonstrate wood carving, fiber arts, blacksmithing, traditional music and making corn husk dolls. The Giving Tree Gift Shop at the Cradle offers many of their creations as well as forest related books, maps, gifts and snacks.

A full schedule of events is planned in 2016 including Migratory Bird Day April 30, the Songcatchers Music Series Sunday afternoons in July, and Forest Festival Day October 1. Visit www.cradleofforestry.com for a full event schedule, details and updates on interpretive programs and exhibits.

Admission to the Cradle of Forestry is $5.00 for adults and free for youth under 16 years of age. America the Beautiful passes, Golden Age Passports and Every Kid in a Park passes are honored. The Cradle of Forestry in America Interpretive Association provides free admission on Tuesdays.

Admission includes the new film, First in Forestry- Carl Alwin Schenck and The Biltmore Forest School, hands-on exhibits and scavenger hunts. It also includes historic cabins, antique equipment and forest scenery on three paved trails, the Adventure Zone designed to reach children with autism and engage young families, and guided trail tours and living history demonstrations when available.

The Cradle of Forestry is located on Hwy. 276 in the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, six miles north of Looking Glass Falls and four miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. For more information call 828-877-3130 or go to www.cradleofforestry.com.

 

Which one of Colorado’s treasured landscapes could stage the next chapter of conservation?

Posted by on Apr 1, 2016 @ 4:51 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Flowing from the top of the Rockies to the Mississippi River, the Arkansas River is one of America’s mighty river systems. Its headwaters make up an ecological wonderland and a recreational hotspot, cutting through rugged canyon country full of hair-raising land features like rock hoodoos and rough crags.

This breathtaking Colorado landscape could be protected for future generations thanks to Planning 2.0, which places an emphasis on landscape-level planning and balancing conservation with other uses. The Wilderness Society worked with our science partners to craft a proposal for an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (a type of protective BLM designation) to incorporate principles of Planning 2.0 and help move public lands conservation into the next chapter.

The Planning 2.0 approach can be thought of like a jigsaw puzzle—it looks at all the puzzle pieces and figures out how each piece interacts and supports each other. It means a holistic approach, which is a good thing for conservation and for management of our public lands.

For the Arkansas River canyon lands, this could be a great opportunity. Public lands here are highly valuable and a number of resources should be protected. The BLM should capitalize on the landscape-level approach to determine these interconnections and how our public lands are being fully protected.

Learn more about Planning 2.0…

 

Climate Model Predicts West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Melt Rapidly

Posted by on Mar 31, 2016 @ 12:32 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

Climate Model Predicts West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Melt Rapidly

For half a century, climate scientists have seen the West Antarctic ice sheet, a remnant of the last ice age, as a sword of Damocles hanging over human civilization.

The great ice sheet, larger than Mexico, is thought to be potentially vulnerable to disintegration from a relatively small amount of global warming, and capable of raising the sea level by 12 feet or more should it break up. But researchers long assumed the worst effects would take hundreds — if not thousands — of years to occur.

Now, new research suggests the disaster scenario could play out much sooner.

Continued high emissions of heat-trapping gases could launch a disintegration of the ice sheet within decades, according to a study published in Nature, heaving enough water into the ocean to raise the sea level as much as three feet by the end of this century.

With ice melting in other regions, too, the total rise of the sea could reach five or six feet by 2100, the researchers found. That is roughly twice the increase reported as a plausible worst-case scenario by a United Nations panel just three years ago, and so high it would likely provoke a profound crisis within the lifetimes of children being born today.

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New Study Confirms Fracking Contamination That The EPA Walked Back On In 2011

Posted by on Mar 31, 2016 @ 4:43 am in Conservation | 0 comments

A new study out of Stanford University offers residents of Pavillion, Wyoming a little more clarity on an issue that has been plaguing them for nearly a decade: is hydraulic fracturing to blame for years of contamination in their drinking water?

The town initially made headlines in 2008, when residents began complaining of strange odors and tastes in their drinking water. In 2011 the EPA got involved, first issuing a draft report that connected fracking to the contamination. The agency later walked back on the report, however, and refused to issue a finalized version and instead handing the matter over to state officials. Years later, the state has yet to move forward with the report.

So researchers at Stanford decided to take measures into their own hands, looking at publicly available records and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to see if they could pinpoint the source of Pavillion’s water contamination. Their conclusion, which was published earlier this week in Environmental Science and Technology, was that fracking operations near Pavillion have had a clear influence on the quality of groundwater.

Using data from two EPA-monitored wells as well as state reviews of natural gas wells, drinking water wells, and drilling pits, the study found that chemicals associated with fracking had migrated from underground storage wells and unlined storage pits into aquifers that supply Pavillion residents with their drinking water.

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Bison coming “home” to Montana Indian reservation after 140 years

Posted by on Mar 29, 2016 @ 4:58 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Bison coming “home” to Montana Indian reservation after 140 years

Descendants of a bison herd captured and sent to Canada more than 140 years ago will be relocated to a Montana American Indian reservation next month, in what tribal leaders bill as a homecoming for a species emblematic of their traditions.

The shipment of animals from Alberta’s Elk Island National Park to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation follows a 2014 treaty among tribes in the United States and Canada. That agreement aims to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions once roamed.

“For thousands of years the Blackfeet lived among the buffalo here. The buffalo sustained our way of life, provided our food, clothing, shelter,” Blackfeet Chairman Harry Barnes said. “It became part of our spiritual being. We want to return the buffalo.”

The lineage of Elk Island’s bison, which experts say are free of cattle genes, traces back to a small group of animals captured by several American Indians on Blackfeet land just south of Canada.

The relocation comes as the restoration of genetically-pure bison to the West’s grasslands and forests have gained traction. The efforts include the relocation of some genetically-pure bison from Yellowstone National Park to two Indian reservations in eastern and central Montana.

The tribes – the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation and the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes of the Fort Belknap Reservations – are signatories to the 2014 treaty.

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Thousands of Ancient Petroglyphs, ‘Dramatic’ Solar Calendar Reported in N. Arizona

Posted by on Mar 28, 2016 @ 8:49 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Archaeologists exploring the remote mesas of northern Arizona have uncovered a trove of previously undocumented rock art, including more than 1,500 petroglyphs, and confirmed the presence a prehistoric solar calendar, which has been marking the seasons for more than 700 years with a striking “shadow dagger” that travels across its sandstone face.

Researchers made these finds in the backcountry of Wupatki National Monument northeast of Flagstaff, which includes the ruins of dozens of sites built by Ancestral Puebloans known as the Kayenta and the Sinagua.

Experts with the Museum of Northern Arizona [MNA] and the National Park Service set out to explore the isolated reaches of the monument in 2014, in order to document the full extent of the rock art and other features that scientists had not studied in decades or, in many cases, had never seen before.

“As a result of the current project, the NPS now has a complete library of photographic images of every panel, every element, and every feature [in the study area]”, said MNA’s David Purcell, who supervised the study.

“And we were able to expand the scope of the project … and conduct some pilot analysis of how the rock art is oriented to the horizons, and conduct detailed additional documentation of the solar calendars.”

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4 myths about America’s parks and public lands

Posted by on Mar 27, 2016 @ 5:28 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Fact-checking four of the most pervasive myths used by anti-conservation land takeover proponents.

As presidential hopefuls tour the country, some candidates are spreading false rhetoric about our national public lands, how they originated and to whom these lands “rightfully” belong. The standoff at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has shed light on the extremist views of a vocal minority, but the reality is that most Americans do not agree with the agenda to turn our national public lands like parks, forests and refuges over to state and local authorities.

Below are four factually incorrect statements about public lands and responses to them from leading property law, land policy and economic experts from across the West. Complete article is here…

Myth: The federal government “owns” a vast majority of acreage in the West, locking Americans off lands that rightfully belong to them.

Fact: Our national public lands already belong to all Americans, who may access them at any time for recreation and enjoyment.

Myth: The U.S. government is obligated give these lands back to western states, their rightful owners.

Fact: The claim that the U.S. government is under any legal obligation to give some or all of the public lands to western states lacks any credible legal foundation.

Myth: The idea of states taking over public lands is popular in the West and will improve the economy.

Fact: State control of our shared public lands would result in loss of access to places that support a $646 billion-dollar economic engine in America every year.

Myth: States can afford to manage large areas of public land.

Fact: Taking over public lands would cost states millions of dollars every year and force increased commodity development to cover the fiscal shortfall.

 

After 115 Years, Scotland Is Coal-Free

Posted by on Mar 26, 2016 @ 5:15 am in Conservation | 0 comments

After some 115 years, Scotland has burned its last lump of coal for electricity.

The Longannet power station, the last and largest coal-fired power plant in Scotland, ceased operations March 24th. What once was the largest coal plant in Europe shut down after 46 years before the eyes of workers and journalists, who gathered in the main control room.

“Ok, here we go,” said one worker moments before pressing a bright red button that stopped the coal-fired turbines that generated electricity for a quarter of Scottish homes.

Longannet’s closure comes as Scotland, a country of some 5 million people, aims to have enough renewable energy to power 100 percent of its electricity demand by 2020. And while Europe has lowered its investment in renewables recently, Scotland seems well on its way to meeting its green energy goals.

Renewable electricity output has more than doubled since 2007 and is equivalent to half of the electricity consumed. This surge in renewables follows a massive investment in onshore and offshore wind, which has established Scotland as a renewable energy leader in the region. In fact, Scotland’s largest wind farm is also the largest in the United Kingdom. Whitelee Windfarm near Glasgow has a 539-megawatt capacity and generates enough electricity to power just under 300,000 homes.

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Congress Should Confront the Rise of Violent Extremism on America’s Public Lands

Posted by on Mar 25, 2016 @ 12:22 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

Congress has the power and responsibility to investigate the threat of anti-government extremism to America’s public lands, public servants, and nearby communities. Since 2014, when Cliven Bundy led hundreds of anti-government militants in an armed standoff with federal law enforcement officials near Bunkerville, Nevada, anti-government activists have organized and led at least four other armed confrontations on public lands.

Congress should begin to fulfill its oversight responsibilities by launching an investigation into the rise of violent confrontations organized by anti-government extremists on public lands. This investigation could be conducted by a special or select committee or through the committees responsible for homeland security, natural resources, and Indian affairs.

Since Cliven Bundy summoned militias and anti-government activists to Nevada in 2014, a complex web of extremist groups has been actively organizing and carrying out the recent armed takeovers of public lands, including the assault on the Malheur NWR. These groups include the III Percent Patriots; the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or CSPOA; the Pacific Patriots Network; Oath Keepers; People For Constitutional Freedom, or PFC; and Operation Mutual Aid.

A Centers for American Progress review of the fundraising efforts of the land seizure movement reveals several financial irregularities that merit federal or state review. In particular, several of the previously mentioned groups seek donations from the public as if they were charitable organizations, yet the contributions they receive appear to go to for-profit entities or individuals.

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Free Admission and Festivities for All during National Park Week April 16-24, 2016

Posted by on Mar 25, 2016 @ 6:55 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Free Admission and Festivities for All during National Park Week April 16-24, 2016

As the National Park Service (NPS) celebrates 100 years of protecting and preserving the nation’s parks and monuments, all Americans are encouraged to get out and FindYourPark during National Park Week, April 16 through 24, 2016. All National Park Service entrance fees will be waived for the week so choose a park, near or far, and discover what makes it unique.

Each of the 410 national parks is a thread in the tapestry that tells the story of our country – its beautiful landscapes, diverse culture, and rich heritage. Throughout the year, and especially during National Park Week, the NPS and the National Park Foundation, invite everyone to discover and share their own unique connections to our public lands.

“We have an amazing variety of special events taking place during the centennial,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “Some commemorate our first hundred years, but many others look to the future, to the next 100 years, and will help connect with and create the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates. It is through them that America’s lands and stories will be preserved and passed on to future generations.”

“With free admission to parks all week long, National Park Week is the perfect opportunity to check out a new location, revisit one of your favorite parks, and perhaps invite a friend who has never visited a park before to join you,” said Will Shafroth, president of the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America’s national parks. “It’s a great time to experience and celebrate our parks and historic places, and discover and share with each other how these treasured places are vital and relevant to people from all backgrounds from all over the country.”

National Park Week will kick off with National Junior Ranger Day on Saturday, April 16. Parks will host kid oriented activities and distribute the new Centennial Junior Ranger booklet and badge. Throughout the week, many parks will also host Every Kid in a Park events, which encourage fourth grade students to visit national parks and other public lands by offering a free annual pass.

Other highlights during the week include an education summit on April 20, Earth Day events on April 22, a national park InstaMeet on April 23, and Park RxDay on April 24. Park Rx is a community health initiative where medical doctors “prescribe” time in parks to promote wellness and help prevent and treat chronic disease. More than a dozen national parks will offer health screenings and recreational activities, including an event with the U.S. Surgeon General.

Visit www.FindYourPark.com to learn more about National Park Week activities throughout the country.