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Threatened By Climate Change, National Parks And World Heritage Sites Draw Millions

In this Oct. 17, 2013, file photo, visitors at Tunnel View, like Kaori Nishimura and Eriko Kuboi, from Japan, center facing, enjoy the views of Yosemite National Park, Calif. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/GARY KAZANJIAN, FILE
In this Oct. 17, 2013, file photo, visitors at Tunnel View, like Kaori Nishimura and Eriko Kuboi, from Japan, center facing, enjoy the views of Yosemite National Park, Calif. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/GARY KAZANJIAN, FILE

With spring now in full gear throughout most of the United States, it’s a good bet that Memorial Day Weekend will again be the busiest of the whole year at many national parks, including the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Utah’s Mount Zion. Last year, 305 million people visited National Park Service-administered sites, signifying the parks’ appeal to millions of Americans and world tourists.

They’d better hurry. A report released Thursday from the United Nations and the Union of Concerned Scientists found that the threats posed by climate change particularly endanger the unique and fragile places on the planet: World Heritage Sites. Countries nominate these symbols of conservation because of their outstanding natural, ecological, or cultural value.

Ten of the 23 World Heritage Sites in the United States are National Parks. Some sites are important buildings, like Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and others are monuments, like the Statue of Liberty.

There are over a thousand UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and the U.N. report just looked at the vulnerability of a few dozen. In each case, the researchers found that climate change threatens to permanently change some of the most wondrous places on the planet. Not only could there be catastrophic ramifications for the sites themselves, but these changes could also seriously threaten the local economies that rely on the tourism revenue these natural wonders generate. Moreover, a report last month found that nearly half of World Heritage Sites are threatened by harmful industrial activity.

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The National Park Service reported last year that climate change could cause more than $40 billion in damage to national parks. This is nowhere more evident than on the service’s logo.

The logo of the National Park Service depicts a sequoia, a mountain boasting glaciers, and a bison. All are threatened by climate change. Giant redwood and sequoia trees, which have lived for centuries, face particular threats from extreme heat and drought. The glaciers, once so prominent in many northern parks, face decreasing snowpack, which makes it difficult to visit the namesakes of Glacier National Park. They could be gone by the end of the century. And as the grasses that feed them experience hotter temperatures and yield less nutrients, the bison depicted in the logo will get smaller.

Warmer weather will change the precipitation patterns in Olympic National Park, a World Heritage Site, which experienced historic wildfires last year. Sea level rise threatens the delicate saline balance of the Everglades, another World Heritage Site.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the most famous World Heritage Sites on the planet.

Yet you won’t read about the Great Barrier Reef in the U.N. climate report, after the Australian government demanded all mentions of the reef be scrubbed, for fear that tourism would suffer.

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Record-breaking hot ocean temperatures are frying the reef, threatening a massive and unique ecosystem and the country’s main tourism draw. Nearly all of the reef has been seriously impacted by coral bleaching caused by high ocean temperatures and a third of the northern section is completely dead.

It’s a global problem, critically important for millions of people dependent on the reef ecosystem for. Thailand closed popular dive sites due to coral bleaching.

National Parks have not yet needed to make such an extreme move due to obvious climate impacts, though some places are forced to close due to wildfires and drought. And a 2014 study found that visits to parks in lower latitudes are projected to decline in the future under high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Dropping park emissions is something the NPS has examined, and first among the causes was automobile exhaust.

Visitors can check the website of the national park they want to visit to see if they boast electric vehicle charging stations, a recent trend to allow tourists to help rein in emissions.