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Why Parks & Protected Areas?
Since most parks and protected areas are at the mercy of either public or not-for-profit budgets, you would think that have a good rationale for defending their existence would fit in the MUST HAVE. It will be interesting to test this with a little net research, which I will share with you in this story. While CPAWS did not come up first, I thought I would lead with it, because I think they have learned a value lesson, in that you have to reach a person in their heart and their head to get their support. One way they get their message is to ask their members, Wild at Heart is a good example of this:
Wild at Heart Share your thoughts about our beloved wild places with CPAWS.Send your Wild at Heart submissions (essays, poetry, pictures) to: http://www.cpaws.org/wild/index.html CPAWS has developed a Wild at Heart theme designed to make our values about nature a prominent part of our work. We are exploring the intersection between spirituality and the environment. We know many of our members are interested in this. As a beginning, we decided to invite anyone who wanted to share with us, in one paragraph or so, their spiritual connection with nature. Some CPAWS board and staff members have already done this, and you can click here to read what they had to say. The first link I encountered was an EE exercise you can check out at: http://www.umass.edu/umext/mac/lessons/lesson5/ On a simliar vein Candian Geographic asked their readers what parks meant to them http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/surveys/parks/comments.asp?currentPage=35
Why Parks Exercise Where you essentially ask people why parks? http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/101/lesplan.htm here is a PDF version of the above: http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/101/dialogue.pdf From Historic http://www.usi.edu/hsi/proceedings/larsen1.asp There is a very good Australian resource that helps answer this question at: they also have a Why Do We Have Parks? Acitivity Sheet available as a PDF at: http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/PDFs/nationalparks_activity_02.pdf Another activity sheet is at: http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/education/resource_kit/resources/PVERKsection11316.pdf OK, this one does not answer the question but it does provide you with a worldwide directory of park agencies at: http://www.world-national-parks.net/ Another resource that does not answer the question, but which provides some examples of good materials for people to develop an appreciation for parks, without even visiting them, check out: http://cal-parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21491 they also have a whole video catalog , and you can view the videos online, the URL is: http://cal-parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=22083 Jobs versus the Environment-Do we have to make a choice? I realize this is not on topic, but boy of boy this article makes you think about how we make decisions: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/bc/job-env.html I liked it so much I printed out a hard copy of it.
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