America's Heritage For Sale
Where is America's hottest real estate market? It could be our national parks.
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UPDATE: NPCA's media campaign had the immediate impact of protecting land threatened by development at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, inspired the California State Assembly to pass a resolution in support of greater land acquisition funding for national parks, and helped to encourage appropriators in the U.S. House of Representatives to double the Administration’s fiscal year 2009 request for National Park Service land acquisition needs. |
That's right. Luxury houses and commercial developments may be built right in the heart of many national parks. While Congress drew the boundaries of those parks, the White House and Congress have yet to provide the funds needed to purchase all of the land within those boundaries.
NPCA has published America's Heritage For Sale, the first comprehensive look in decades at the development threats to land within national park boundaries, and highlighted 10 national parks with For Sale signs now posted on land within their boundaries. At Gettysburg for instance, one out of every five acres inside the park’s boundary is privately owned--and vulnerable to development. This puts wildlife, natural and cultural treasures, the experiences of visitors, and the very future of our national parks at risk.
This crisis has a solution. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a federal program that provides funding for federal agencies, including the Park Service, to purchase critical lands now on the market for conservation and public recreation.
NPCA is recommending at least $100 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the Park Service's federal land acquisition needs next year (fiscal year 2009), and a significant investment in future years to ensure that the national parks are fully protected and preserved by their 2016 centennial--and without a patchwork of development inside their borders.
America's heritage can no longer be for sale.
