0.14 Land  (Page 5/5)

The National Park System consists of more than 80 million acres nationwide. The largest national park is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska with over 13 million acres. California has eight national parks: Channel Islands, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Lassen, Redwood, Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite. Many national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon are such popular recreation destinations that the ecosystems of those parks are being severely tested by human activities.

Every state has also set aside significant amounts of land for recreational use. The California State Park System manages more than one million acres of parklands including: coastal wetlands, estuaries, scenic coastlines, lakes, mountains and desert areas. California's largest state park is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which is the largest state park in the United States with 600,000 acres. The stated mission of the California State Park System is: "To provide for the health, inspiration and education of the people of California by helping to preserve the state's extraordinary biological diversity, protecting its most valued natural and cultural resources and creating opportunities for high-quality outdoor recreation."

This is the basic goal of all recreational lands: to manage and conserve natural ecosystems, while supporting a sustainable and balanced level of human use of those areas. Unfortunately, it is a goal which is sometimes difficult to achieve due to the increasing popularity and use of recreational lands.

The " Wilderness Act of 1964 " created the world's first wilderness system in the United States. Presently, the National Wilderness Preservation System contains more than 100 million acres of land that will forever remain wild. A wide range of recreation, scientific and outdoor activities are available in wilderness lands. Mining operations and livestock grazing are permitted to continue in certain wilderness areas where such operations existed prior to an area's designation. Hunting and fishing are also allowed in wilderness areas (except in national parks).

For most people, wilderness lands provide a means for various forms of recreation: hiking, horseback riding, bird watching, fishing, and hunting. People can escape the stress of modern-day life and enjoy an undisturbed look at nature. Wilderness lands provide an essential habitat for a wide array of fish, wildlife, and plants, and are particularly important in protecting endangered species. For scientists, wilderness lands serve as natural laboratories, where studies can be performed that would not be possible in developed areas.

Several other types of public lands complement the designated wilderness land system. These include: national forest roadless areas, national trails system, natural research areas and state and private wilderness lands. The national forest roadless areas consist of millions of acres of wild, undeveloped land without roads that exist on National Forest land outside of designated wilderness lands.

The " National Trail System ," established by Congress in 1968, includes trails in wilderness areas and other public lands. Research Natural Areas located throughout the country on public lands serve as outdoor laboratories to study natural systems. They are intended in part to serve as gene pools for rare and endangered species and as examples of significant natural ecosystems. Some wilderness lands are maintained by states or private organizations. For example, the state of New York has long preserved a region of the Adirondacks as wilderness.

On an international level, important wilderness lands have been designated by the United Nations through its " Man and the Biosphere Program ." This program was established in 1973 to protect examples of major natural regions throughout the world, and provide opportunities for ecological research and education.

Biosphere reserves are organized into three interrelated zones: the core area , the buffer zone and the transition area . The core area contains the landscape and ecosystems to be preserved. The buffer zone is an area where activities are controlled to protect the core area. The outer transition area contains a variety of agricultural activities, human settlements and other uses. Local communities, conservation agencies, scientists and private enterprises that have a stake in the management of the region work together to make the reserves work. Mt Kenya in Africa and the Galapagos Islands are examples of wilderness areas protected under this provision.