Thoughts from a kayak...

It's spring time here in Western Pennsylvania and today's 70 degree weather found me out on Lake Arthur (Moraine State Park) out in my kayak. As I slipped silently along the banks of the lake looking at the waterfowl, beavers, and turtles, I found myself deep in thought about a lot of the issues that are facing us dealing with overuse of our park lands.

It's been a subject that I've touched on heavily in research during my undergraduate studies. Ecotourism is a huge industry and one that is continuing to grow. For those that don't know what ecotourism is, Princeton University defines it as "tourism to exotic or threatened ecosystems to observe wildlife or to help preserve nature." While today was not a busy day at Moraine State Park because it is still pretty early, I thought back to the time I've spent in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. I've travelled across the country and have visited many national and state lands.

I feel like we are loving our public lands to death. When we look at a park like Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, we see what used to once be one of the most beautiful landscapes in the nation drowned out by the automobile exhaust from the massive amounts of vehicles from the tourists, the serene sounds of nature are drowning out the whisper of the winds, the calls of the birds, and the sounds of the streams being overloaded with water running off the hills from the harsh winter, welcoming the warmth of the summer.

To be in Grand Canyon National Park and have the drone of planes and helicopters chartering the tourists in and out of this massive rock gorge is a horrendous waste of this beautiful landscape. 

Yellowstone National Park handles over 6 million tourists a year among the 5 or 6 main roads that cut through the park in search of a wild bison, a herd of Rocky Mountain Elk, or the elusive Gray Wolf, recently reintroduced to the area after nearly 60 years of extermination.

Is this the type of scene that we want out children to grow up seeing; the RV's bustling in and out of the gates of our parks, the Beverly Hills styled "outdoors man" with his fancy GPS systems and water filtration systems sitting around their 8-walled tents and considering themselves "roughing it?" I find myself appalled at the number of people who have no appreciation for nature around us and feel that it is their job to control nature. What happened to the idea of escaping from the hustle and bustle of today's urban life and once again retracing the routes of our forefathers?

We've lost sight of what it really means to explore the lands around us and instead maintain the same routes and paths that every other tourist decides to take. It is great that people decide to stop going to the amusement parks and other urban enticements in order to spend time in nature, but I really think these excursions are hurting the land around us.

There is a reason that people have started pushing ideas such as low-impact camping and other forms of recreation. We need to rethink the ways that we view and explore nature. We need to sustainably visit these places, to conserve them for the future, and to take time to think about how we can make sure our children and their children have the same opportunities that we have had.

I know these thoughts tonight may seem jumbled or confused...but there are just so many thoughts I have on this subject and it has been hard to organize them.