Sweeney 1

Joseph Sweeney

Dr. Shannon Hall

GEOG 3700

3 December 2023

The National Park Service (NPS) was created in 1916 as method of preserving the last great

wilderness areas of the United States. These national parks the system designated were

considered the jewels of the country, an exhibit of the vast natural beauty of the North American

continent. While efforts to preserve the natural wonders of the world have been in place since

ancient times, the National Park Service remains one of the first, and most important such

government services whose intentions are for the good of the American people. While I read the

textbook this semester, I encountered many mentions of the NPS and the efforts to keep it

functional and well-funded in the face of increasing political and economic pressures coming

from outside sources. In particular, the story of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the fight

to protect it with the same fervor and guarantees as the nearby Gates of The Arctic National Park,

struck a chord with me. My thoughts turned to all of the National Parks, and whether they had

sufficient legal protection in case of the discovery of oil or other valuable resources as has

happened with the ANWR. In researching these protections, my scope widened. If this is how we

as a country defend our natural wonders and beauty, how do we stack up to the rest of the world.
 Sweeney 2

Does the rest of the world do a better job protecting nature, or are the National Park Service and

other American environmental agencies the only thing standing between the wilderness and that

wilderness’s destruction? In this research paper, I intend to answer the following questions: Are

countries in the earlier stages of their HDI (Human Development Index) less inclined to focus on

the preservation of nature, due to the financial opportunities presented by the land they occupy?

Are we as Americans on par or better than our European contemporaries as far as conservation

goes? And if not, how can we remedy this problem and ensure that our country remains beautiful

and preserved for generations to come? I believe that the countries considered “third world” are

more likely to rescind or ignore environmental preservation ideals due to the pressure of their

citizenry to improve their economic and collective living standards. I also believe that while

Europe is well protected regarding environmental regulations, much of the opportunity to save

true wilderness in the continent was lost long before these concepts were even considered.

Therefore, we in the United States should focus on preserving the wilderness areas we do possess

before it is too late.

The first investigation I had regarding my questions was the status of the countries

historically considered developing, or “third world.” HDI refers to the Human Development

Index, which is a composite index for measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions

of human development (a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.)

(Kpolovie pg.10) The countries who qualify as developing under this index typically struggle to

meet these three basic dimensions in nearly all cases. As such, it follows that countries struggling

in HDI are far more willing to do whatever it takes to remove themselves from the pangs of

economic and social anguish. According to research done by The Pakistan Development Review,

environmental damage done by developing countries is causally related to their continued

 Sweeney 3

economic growth.( Nazeer 1) What this means is that the countries by virtue of necessity must

create more pollution in order to create growth. As a country moves from subsistence farming to

more industrial endeavors, including high pollution manufacturing projects and industries, their

negative impact on the environment must necessarily increase. From the perspective of the

countries increasing their industrial output, the most important thing is to improve the lives of

their people. In nearly every case, it is more important to an elected, or even unelected

government to provide happiness and satisfaction to its citizens before the needs and wants of the

future even come into consideration. While these countries argue that they have a right to pursue

the same economic opportunities that the developed world had pursued during the industrial

revolution in the last few centuries, the fact remains that their collective environmental impact

will continue to cause problems as it increases in the coming decades. Due to the proliferation of

the internet and the shrinking of our world (Engel,52) in terms of the spread of information,

some would argue in response to the nations hellbent on industrialization regardless of the

environmental or natural cost, that the need to industrialize in the same destructive fashion as the

western and eastern developed world before them is irresponsible and dangerous. Unlike the

world of the 19th or 20th century, ignorance is no longer an excuse for destructive behavior to the

natural world. If the Exxon’s, Mobil’s, or Shells of the world, or even Standard Oil before all of

them, had known the vast destruction and threat to humanity their relentless pursuit of oils and

fossil fuels would cause in the future, would they have proceeded in the exact fashion they did?

This hypothetical does assume some level of empathy and humanity from multinational

corporate conglomerates, which I realize is quite bold. But as an optimist and an economist in

this situation, I must insist that the world would use the most efficient, and least impactful

method of resource extraction.

 Sweeney 4

All of this being considered, it is my opinion that the industrialization of today need not

make the same mistakes of the industrialization in the past few centuries. This opinion is shared

by the Middle East Journal of Scientific Research in their research done on the subject. (Samimi

1)To summarize Samimi, Kashefi, Salatin, and Lashkarizadeh, countries clawing their way out of

economic poverty and their “developing” status in the current day and age in many cases do not

exhibit decreases in carbon emissions and environmental impacts as they improve economically.

While this may seem to spell doom for our environmental relations on the surface, the deeper

implication is that simply improving economic status is not enough to solve the environmental

issues in these countries. The developing world is operating under the assumption that by

increasing their industrial output, they can achieve the same results of prosperity as the

developed world, and then, only then decrease the pollution. But what they have not, and by and

large the western developed world has not taken into account is that the destruction of the

environment does not stop once the country improves its status economically. What this is

signaling is that the entire world must operate under the assumption that there won’t be a future

for our natural world unless there is cooperation in enacting better environmental regulations and

values.

For us in the west, this means that the developing world cannot be a scapegoat for the

environmental issues the world is facing if the environmental impact does not improve as HDI

does. The Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research makes it clear in its conclusion that

cooperation between the developed countries and the developing countries in limiting the

environmental impacts of industrialization and the improvement of the developing nations

economies is necessary if we are to curtail the dire consequences of our species’ negative

environmental impacts.
 Sweeney 5

The next question came from a place of curiosity regarding environmental protections the

world over. We previously explored the ramifications of the developing world and just how far

that “development” would go in terms of negatively impacting said countries natural beauty and

living standards. As a consequence, we now recognize that the developing world moving to

industrialization will indeed cause environmental impact as they transition from subsistence

farming, but also that those environmental costs do not necessarily decrease as the populations

HDI improves to developed status. Pondering the idea that the increase in living standards

doesn’t necessarily bring a decrease in the pollution caused by a nation, (Hitam 336) I then

turned my attention to the US and Europe. What were we and our western European highly

developed friends doing to ensure that our natural wilderness and wildlife was preserved and

protected, and was it enough to offset the massive environmental costs our lifestyles were having

on the planet? According to Patrick Kupper in his work “Science and the National Parks: a

Transatlantic Perspective on the Interwar Years.” The American and European approaches

towards the concept of national parks and ecological preservation were alike in general spirit, but

different in their original founding purposes and justifications.

What Kupper alludes to in this work is that in between World War I and World War II, the

formation and propagation of national parks on both sides of the Atlantic in Europe and the US

were fundamentally different in purpose. (Kupper 2) In the US, national parks along with the

National Park Service had been a brainchild of the pre-war years, drawing from a profound sense

of national pride and love for nature. Environmentalists and the early NPS made it clear that the

parks should be in place for the enjoyment and leisure of the citizens of the US. Anything beyond

preserving the beauty of the natural environment was secondary in this case. Meanwhile, in

Europe, most advances on the concept of national parks occurred post-war, owing to the total-
 Sweeney 6

war destruction World War I had wrought on the landscape of the continent. In Europe, many

national parks, but especially the Swiss National Park in Switzerland, came into being as vessels

of scientific research and theories. (Kupper 4) What this implies to me, and to the committees

headed by Leopold and Robbins which assessed the NPS efforts in ecological management and

research, is that European countries had more effectively applied the concept of a national park

managed by the government than the NPS in the time between its foundation and post-World

War II. The gist of the situation comes down to the application of the parks between the two

sides of the Atlantic.

US activists in the realm of preservation of natural wonders were in action long before

contemporaries in Europe had a thought on the subject, perhaps owing to the relatively new

discoveries of the wonders compared to any part of Europe. As a result, the US creation of

national parks occurred well before any similar creations in Europe, and a Park Service was

similarly established well before their European counterparts. However, as stated previously, the

European approach came more from a place of scientific and natural study than one of

fascination. Thus, in Europe, most of the national parks created were done so with a specific

educational or scientific purpose, as opposed to the tourism, layman function of the older

American parks. This dichotomy persisted well into the early 1960s, as noted previously by the

committees assigned to review the scientific contributions and merits of the National Park

Service.

What becomes fascinating to us in the present day is the extensive knowledge of

preservation and conservation among the general public of both America and Europe. The

question in our modern-day centers around not whether or not these incredible sites have been

designated national parks, but how effective we are in protecting and utilizing them in both a
 Sweeney 7

scientific perspective and a base level national awareness and knowledge of the services these

parks provide. (Fancy 3) In this case, the United States is uniquely advantaged in the fact that by

and large our major resources and national landmarks have been preserved, by virtue of our

national parks being the first in existence worldwide. Unlike Europe, pillaged and ravaged by

centuries of war and industrial development, the United States has the opportunity to keep nature

pristine from human involvement or defacing in a way that is suitable for generations to come.

Focusing on the benefits the monitoring and research-based information gathering in the United

States’ national parks provides will give us justification for the continued operation and

preservation of the National Park Service in the future. (Fancy 11)

By contrast, while the nations of Europe have made the most of conserving the wild

spaces that still exist within their borders, the offerings are scant indeed. (Fancy 8) The nature of

European park preservation is almost by necessity in the interwar period. European parks were

formed with a heavy emphasis on the scientific and naturalistic research that could be gleaned

from their creation and continued existence. However, when compared to the vast and nearly

untouched wilderness the massive US parks contain, these European parks almost seem to be too

little, too late. Through no fault other than the shortsightedness of the leaders and peoples of the

ancient past, Europe has almost entirely become settled and developed by humanity, then warred

over by humanity. As a result, even attempts at maintaining and preserving the small patches of

the natural world still present in the European continent seem more akin to a zoo or museum

exhibit than the scarcely touched wild of the American preserves and parks. My conclusion to

draw from this is that American conservationists, by being as quick and impactful as they were to

start the global national parks movement, have created a golden opportunity for the generations

of the future to maintain, study, and enjoy true wilderness free from human influence.
 Sweeney 8

While it is nice to talk about the preservation of natural wonder and wilderness as a

given, when referring to American parks and preserves, the actual work and process to preserve

those areas is complex and haunted at every turn by lobbyist groups and counter movements. As

Timothy Boston notes in his study on Anti-Environmentalism, those who would oppose national

parks and other forms of environmental preservation “aims to undermine any green ideology that

challenges neoclassical economic praxis, and that does not support, for example, private property

rights, monetary rule and what might be termed 'rational resource development'. (Boston 5) What

Boston is referring to is the desperate struggle of those opposed to environmentally friendly

action to support the status quo. In their minds, the world as it currently exists does not need

correction, especially in any case where their current framework of economic functions is

threatened by upheaval. Broadly, those who would oppose wider adoption of protected areas and

natural environments generally have a monetary or economic incentive to do so. Whether or not

these behaviors might be termed as selfish is up for debate, but what is clear is the primary

roadblock to preserving areas such as the ANWR mentioned previously is the potential financial

gain for the parties who would see those areas harvested and destroyed.

As citizens of a globe who ostensibly see ourselves as the inheritors of the great national

parks and the last vestiges of wilderness on the planet, it is imperative that we organize education

around this subject to inform those who aren’t aware of the danger our natural world faces. As

noted by Birdsall in her work on empowering students to act on environmental preservation, the

most important thing we can do is provide regular citizens with framework to enact positive

change on the planet versus simply just informing them of the problems. (Birdsall 2) What

Birdsall means by this is it will be far more effective to provide methods to influence policy than

to simply lecture people on the wrongs of humanity. If we as a population can effectively

 Sweeney 9

implement this type of actionability in the minds of today and tomorrow, the process of saving

the planet’s natural beauty and resources becomes far more manageable.

In conclusion, while the developing countries of the world aren’t entirely at fault for the

state of the increasing pollution in the world due to economic growth, there are avenues for

improved cooperation between the developing world and the developed world in order to prevent

those impacts from scaling with the HDI improvement of said developing countries. In addition,

while the United States implemented the National Parks system before Europe, European nations

crafted their national parks around scientific and natural research instead of tourism, which gave

them a leg up on sustainability between the war years and post WWII Europe. However, the US

Parks have the benefit of possessing far more resources to conserve as a whole, owing to their

relatively recent modern human encounters. With this in mind, the US NPS has the opportunity

to maintain a vast wealth of knowledge and natural beauty for future generations as compared to

European nations. Finally, the success of activism in environmental outreach depends on all of

us, but especially on the framework in which students and citizens engage the topics with others.

This actionability will provide the key to preserving the wilderness for the generations of the

future. As I pored over these resources regarding the topic of preservation and environmentalism,

the most important conclusion I can draw is that we as citizens of the United States and the

World have a duty to ourselves and our children to do the most we can for parks and ethe

environment.
 Sweeney 10

Works Cited

Birdsall, Sally. "Empowering students to act: Learning about, through and from the nature of

action." Australian Journal of Environmental Education 26 (2010): 65-84.

Boston, Timothy. "Exploring anti-environmentalism in the context of sustainability." Electronic

Green Journal 1.11 (1999).

Cunningham, William P., et al. “Parks and Preserves.” Principles of Environmental Science:

Inquiry and Applications, 10th ed., McGraw Hill, 2023, pp. 145–145.

Engel, Jeffrey A. "A Shrinking World." A Companion to International History 1900–

2001 (2007): 52-64.

Everhart, William. The national park service. Routledge, 2019.

Fancy, Steven G., and Robert E. Bennetts. "Institutionalizing an effective long-term monitoring

program in the US National Park Service." Design and analysis of long-term ecological

monitoring studies (2012): 481-497.

Hitam, Mizan Bin, and Halimahton Binti Borhan. "FDI, growth and the environment: impact on

quality of life in Malaysia." Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 50 (2012): 333-342.

Hoang, Tham C., et al. "Environmental pollution, management, and sustainable development:

Strategies for Vietnam and other developing countries." Environmental management 63 (2019):

433-436.

Kpolovie, Peter J., S. Ewansiha, and M. Esara. "Continental comparison of human development

index (HDI)." International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE) 4.1

(2017): 9-27.
 Sweeney 11

Kupper, Patrick. "Science and the national parks: a transatlantic perspective on the interwar

years." Environmental History 14.1 (2009): 58-81.

Nazeer, Munazah, Uzma Tabassum, and Shaista Alam. "Environmental pollution and sustainable

development in developing countries." The Pakistan Development Review (2016): 589-604.

Samimi, Ahmad Jafari, et al. "Environmental performance and HDI: evidence from countries

around the world." Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 10.3 (2011): 294-301.