More than 140 years ago, the United States government designated Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park — an untouched Western landscape of geysers, grizzly bears and soaring peaks. The national parks program eventually expanded to include more than 450 sites and has become one of the country’s greatest tourist draws.
Now China is trying to do with some of its natural spaces what the United States did during its own industrial boom. Chinese officials and a research center based in Chicago, announced a plan to undertake trial national park projects in nine provinces over the next three years.
In some spots in China where nature still thrives, like the popular Huanglong and Jiuzhaigou alpine parks in Sichuan Province, conservation efforts have become secondary to moneymaking ventures by tourism concession companies. Such areas are also often threatened by industrial pollution and construction.
But in December 2013, according to state news reports, Xi Jinping, the country’s president and head of the Communist Party, told a meeting of senior officials charged with making economic policy that China should move forward with a true national park system.
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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