Parks and reserves play a central role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, preventing the extinction of various plants, providing humans with clean air and water, and conserving natural resources. The United States has over 400 national parks that protect threatened or unique species in ecosystems and geography (Cross, 2019). Due to their existence and active performance in the conservation of distinct plants, animals, and insects, the ecosystems still have recycling nutrients and fertilized soil. These processes bring balance to ecosystems and allow the human species to use and benefit from natural resources and live in balanced nature at the same time. If some of the ecosystem’s chain reduces or disappears, the other chain products will accumulate. The latter leads to drastic changes in nature and daily human life.
Due to parks and reserves, the local environment is improving by having saved sources of pure water, carbon, and clean air. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park supplies water that is secure to drink for at least 3 million people in various cities in San Francisco, U.S. (Cross, 2019). Clean air and increased time spent outside impact individuals’ health and develop a caring attitude to nature (National Recreation and Park Association, 2017; Matusse, 2019). The latter decrease vandalism, nature pollution, and damage to vegetation from the current population and the new generation.
The local economy benefits from parks and reserves significantly by attracting tourists and increasing their spending on park attendance. Moreover, recreation agencies and U.S. local parks spent more than $166 billion in economic activity in 2017 (National Recreation and Park Association, 2017). The latter added GDP to more than 1.1 million employment places that provided people with official occupations and paid them wages, salaries, and benefits resulting in $50.8 billion in profits to the economy (National Recreation and Park Association, 2017).
References
Cross, L. (2019, May 16). How national parks benefit the environment. Inhabitant. Web.
Matusse, A. (2019). Laws, parks, reserves, and local peoples: A brief historical analysis of conservation legislation in Mozambique. Conservation & Society, 17(1), 15–25.
National Recreation and Park Association. (2017). The economic impact of parks. Web.
Zawilinska, B., Branka, P., Majewski, K., Semczuk, M. (2021). National parks — areas of economic development or stagnation? Evidence from Poland. Sustainability, 13,11351. Web.