PERSPECTIVE ON THE ENVIRONMENT : A New Conservation Ethic : The educational process begins in our national parks: higher entrance fees, new parks in unexpected places.

In its 1916 decree creating the National Park Service, Congress explicitly outlined two goals: Preserve the designated sites “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations,” and provide for the public enjoyment of those resources. The conflict between preservation and access has forced a creative tension on the Park Service since its first days. Achieving balance grows more difficult each year.

As challenging as the mission is, the two goals are not contradictory, particularly when one focuses on the nature of the genuine park visitor experience.

The national parks are not about entertainment; Disney, Warner Brothers and others are masters at that task, and park rangers need not compete with them. Rather, rangers facilitate the American people’s encounter with their heritage. The challenge is in bringing the visitor to a more intense appreciation of the natural world.

This framework sets new and clear parameters on methods for accommodating more visitors.

Despite annual increases in visitation, for example, the Park Service will not be in the road-building business. Roads disrupt, divide and fragment natural systems that are the very reason for parks; our challenge is in finding new means of visitor transport.

We will not be in the hotel-building business, but will instead work with owners of lands bordering parks so that many overnight needs can be met in gateway communities. These communities can also serve as “staging” areas, where visitors can learn of a park’s facilities, collect materials and shop--all without adding to the milling crowds inside.

Likewise, the service must consider different methods for protecting its resource base, because it is no longer enough to focus on the nature of developments within the park. We must begin to focus on parks not as distinct entities, but as the centers of ecosystems.

At Yellowstone, massive herds of elk and buffalo (and soon, perhaps, gray wolves) do not acknowledge the straight lines on a map; those animals inherited an entire ecosystem, and park staff must work closely with resource managers from other state and federal agencies to protect their migration range.

Everglades National Park is part of a natural system being killed by the invasion of exotic plants (caused by nutrient-rich agricultural runoff) and the diversion of water for residential and commercial uses. That park’s fate lies not in the hands of its rangers, but in a massive, multi-agency effort to restore the system.

Sequoia National Park has air-quality problems worse than many large cities, but the problems’ source lies in faraway industrial centers along the California coast and in the Central Valley. Clearly, it is no longer sufficient to label land a park and assume it is protected.

Protecting the resource base also means continuing the search for new sites, because America’s history and perspectives are always changing. Fifty years ago, there was no Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Site to be preserved, because that chapter in our history had not yet been written.

A century ago, we crossed the Midwest in search of scenic splendor, oblivious to the extraordinary biodiversity being plowed up and taken for granted. The new effort to create a park in the Kansas tall-grass prairie finally acknowledges the importance of that resource.

Generations in search of alpine scenery simply walked on by some of America’s most unique ecosystems. One of those regions would be protected by the California Desert Protection Act, ushered through the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Unsurpassed in its scenic, biological, cultural and recreational significance, the desert has been ignored too long.

Finally, protection of the resource requires a sounder financial base. A first step would be congressional action to restore discretion to the Interior secretary to set reasonable park entrance fees. Currently, only three of the 367 Park Service sites charge $10 per vehicle, only 15 charge as much as $5 per car and Yellowstone’s entrance fee is less today than it was in 1915. In addition, Congress can provide collection incentives to park managers by returning to the park half the money collected above the current base.

Though beset by fundamental problems, the welcome sign is out at our national parks, because the National Park Service can fill a unique and immediate role. We are within decades of an environmental collapse on this planet. Our urgent task is to communicate to the American people what it means to live more lightly and respectfully on the land.

Any contemplation of our role in developing and teaching a new conservation ethic leads directly back to the national parks. The parks are where this task is easiest, where the educational process begins, where it is all so extraordinarily fresh, obvious and overwhelming. The national parks must serve as the gateway to the conservation ethic, because if that gateway can’t be crossed in our national parks, it can’t be crossed anywhere.