美文阅读American National Parks.docVIP

American National Parks The National Park Service of the USA controls more than 77 million acres of land, divided up into 320 park sites of extraordinary variety, the latest covering huge areas of wilderness in Alaska there are urban or city parks, there are ancient buildings and historic sites, seashore parks, national rivers, and more and more recreation areas where priority is given to the amusement of the public. Finally there are the National Parks themselves, which are visited by millions, but where the priority is conservation. In a country of free enterprise, where business interests are so powerful, these parks play an essential role. It was the conservationists who saved the remaining giant redwood trees and created the National Redwood Park, on the far side of the Golden Gate Bridge which spans the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The lumberjacks were so furious that they marched into the city to protest, shouting “No more parks!” But the environmentalists and conservationists have always been allowed to have their say in the “Land of the Free”, and their influence has been greater than in most countries. The first national park, founded in 1872, was Yellowstone, in the State of Wyoming. Yellowstone has everything which appeals to the romantic, geysers which shoot jets of boiling water 200 feet up into the air, a deep canyon where a rushing river pours over mighty waterfalls. There are snowy mountain peaks, tree-fringed lakes and vast forests, as well as broad water meadows, across which the Yellowstone River glides gently on its way to the canyon. On these meadows bison, elk, moose and deer come to graze in the evening. American national parks represent one of the finest examples of nature conservation in the world. All the parks are kept as “natural” as possible. In the Far West, lumbermen devastated whole forests. But no tree-felling is allowed in the parks. When a tree falls, it is left to rot and enrich the soil, and so encourage young trees to grow