Our national parks need visitors to survive

Despite what many commentators on The Conversation have said, conserving biodiversity in our national parks isn’t the way to save them. Parks need visitors to get vital community and political support. Parks, like every other institution on this planet, are a social construction. Those reserved in the 19th century reflect the values of those times - health and pleasure for humans. In recent decades, social values have led to a strong focus instead on conserving biodiversity. New moves to include grazing, logging and recreational shooting are a reflection of current efforts of some groups to re-construct the purpose of parks. If park managers and other advocates don’t like these moves to change national parks into resource extraction reserves, they have to enlist the support of visitors