Revisiting Leopold: Resource Stewardship in the National Parks

The US National Park System is significantly different – in scope, number of units, size and complexity – than in the 1960s when the Leopold Report. Scientific understanding of natural and cultural resources has expanded dramatically. Developments since the 1960s include increasing biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, land use change, groundwater depletion, invasive species, rapid and sometimes unplanned development, growing air, noise, and light pollution and the impacts of climate change. The cultural values and interests held by the American people have also broadened, generating pressing demands for parks to reflect diversity and relevance for new generations. Fifty years on, the National Parks Service and its National Park System Advisory Board have revisited the Leopold Report. The new report, Revisiting Leopold, published here, focuses on the natural and cultural resource management of the National Park System and answers three questions: 1) What should be the goals of resource management in the National Park System?; 2) What policies for resource management are necessary to achieve these goals?; 3) What actions are required to implement these policies?