Group Lists 10 Most Endangered U.S. Parks

Hoping to reroute the environmental policies of the next administration, a leading conservationist group Tuesday ranked Yosemite National Park and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area among the 10 most endangered parks in the country.

The Wilderness Society called on national leaders to overhaul their priorities for land-use and to reverse what the society sees as an eight-year slide of neglect and abuse under the Reagan Administration.

The group said that its list of 10, not ranked in any order, highlighted only the most severe threats among a general malaise that has hit the federal lands.

Other national parks on the list are Everglades in Florida; Glacier in Montana; Grand Canyon in Arizona; Great Smoky in Tennessee and North Carolina; Olympic in Washington; Rocky Mountain in Colorado; Yellowstone in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, and Manassas National Battlefield in Virginia.

Ecological Threats

Officials of the private conservationist group, created in 1935 to try to preserve federal lands, said the 10 sites face a myriad of ecological threats from mineral drilling, clear-cutting and developing commercial interests such as plane rentals and resorts.

Within Yosemite’s 761,170 acres, for instance, Wilderness Society ecologists pointed to the potential damage from congestion and car pollution, a soaring number of low-altitude tourist and military flights over the park, increased residential construction and damage done to wildlife from logging and road building in the adjacent Stanislaus National Forest.

And at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the group’s report said, the government must buy up more of the park land to block development on privately owned land and ensure continued access for all users.

While acknowledging great needs in the upkeep of federal lands, Jerry Rogers, an associate director at the National Park Service, challenged the group’s list of endangered sites, saying, “Those 10 reflect the orientation of the Wilderness Society, and that’s to be expected.”