Civilian Conservation Corps could help our National Parks fight ravages of climate change

(Photo of endangered pika in Canadian Rockies from Flickr and photographers Lara and Chris Pawluk.)

It’s time to create a new Civilian Conservation Corps to work in our understaffed, underfunded National Parks. The CCC of Franklin Roosevelt’s time put hundreds of thousands of young unemployed men to work in the parks. It’s unlikely we could do anything on that scale, but with unemployment high and the parks threatened by everything from climate change to careless use and lack of maintenance, they could do a lot of good – both for the parks and for themselves.

Climate change is the greatest threat to the parks and it's already having an impact. Warmer temperatures, erratic weather and water shortages are taking their toll on glaciers, trees, wildlife and plants. Ecosystems are changing and big adjustments must be made to fight invasive pests and help wildlife migrate away from the Equator.

Parks are in danger
A new report from the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and Natural Resources Defense Council tallies current disruptions and threats for the future:

• Beetle infestations to whiteback pines in Yellowstone have put grizzly bears back on the Endangered Species list because they feed on nuts from those trees.
• Joshua Tree National Park is losing its Joshua trees.
• Glacier Park is losing its glaciers (they’ll be gone in about a dozen years), as are Mt. Rainier, Yosemite and others.
• In Rocky Mountain National Park nearly all mature lodgepole pines have been killed by beetles.
• The pika, a cute little animal that lives at cool, high elevations, is nearly extinct, while sea turtles, Florida panthers, bighorn sheep and salmon are among threatened species.
• 1,000 trout succumbed to heat in a Yellowstone river in 2007.
• 50% of the coral in Virgin Islands National Park have died since 2006.
• Low-lying and coastal parks and monuments, such as Acadia, the Everglades, Biscayne and Dry Tortugas are threatened by rising seas. So are Ellis Island and even the Statue of Liberty.
• And parks in the Southwest are forecast to eventually have 100+ days over 100 degrees each summer – including Big Bend, Joshua Tree, Lake Mead and Saguaro. That alone would keep the visitors away, aside from the damage it wreaks on the landscape.

What to do about it
The report recommends expanding the parks, opening new ones and creating migration corridors to let plants and animals adapt to changing conditions. Each park should have a specific plan to protect at-risk resources. Air quality in the parks should be better protected; with more heat, ground-level ozone will be a health hazard. Some endangered parks should charge an entrance fee to help pay for adaptation. And all parks should be carbon neutral to do their part toward fighting climate change, following the lead of the Pacific Northwest.

Certainly a group of bright, unemployed men and women could help with the planning and labor. Let’s put them to work and kill two birds with one stone. (An unfortunate metaphor. But you know what I mean.)

(Sources: rockymountainclimate.org, ClimateWire)