United States General Accounting Office Report to the Ranking Minority Member,Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Lands, House Committee on Resources: National Park Service: Activities within Park Borders Have Caused Damage to Resources

摘要

Conditions in the national parks are deteriorating. In our 1995 report on thefuture of the park system, we documented the declining state of services for visitors to the parks, as well as the degradation of many natural, cultural, and historic resources in the park system. Among the challenges facing the national park system are threats that have damaged or have the potential to damage the parks' natural or cultural resources. This report responds to your request that we review internal threats to the parks' resources. It complements our 1994 report and completes our review of the Park Services's maangement of threats. As you requested, to parallel our work on external threats, the report addresses (1) the information the Park Service is developing on the number and types of internal threats, (2) the relative severity of the damage these threats have caused, (3) the change in the severity of these threats over the past decade, and (4) the actions taken by the Park Service to mitigate them.