In Praise of State Parks and Other Unsung Public Lands

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“National parks get all the glory,” writes Jesse Smith at The Smart Set, but he says state parks deserve props, too. Smith notes that what many state parks lack in epic grandeur, they make up for with accessibility:

The state park system is arguably more diverse than its national counterpart. This seems counterintuitive, considering the 58 national parks are made up of biological and geological features that range from volcanoes to giant sequoias, glaciers to dry deserts. But the epic-ness of the national parks gives the system a kind of sameness—a collection of Big Wonders.

State parks can at first seem a bit tame in comparison—many consist of forest, hiking trails, maybe a lake with a swimming beach. They’re meant to provide easy access to the natural world (when budget cuts aren’t reducing it, that is). None of us can visit on a whim, say, the deepest lake in the Western Hemisphere, formed by a collapsed volcano. But in the two free days we have each week, we can fairly easy get to Lums Pond State Park or Cherry Creek State Park or Mashamoquet Brook State Park.

Smith notes that there are more than 6,000 state park units in the nation, attracting more than 725 million visits a year. “And yet you’ll never see the state parks on any kind of national calendar, on the face of any coin.”

http://www.utne.com/Wild-Green/In-Praise-of-State-Parks-and-Other-Unsung-Public-Lands.aspx?utm_content=09.21.10+Environment&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email