U. S. Geological Survey Photographic Library [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Oct 9, 2008 - 8 comments

Wall Arch in Utah's Arches National Park has collapsed. [more inside]
posted by Knappster on Aug 10, 2008 - 36 comments

Kennan Ward Nature-Wildlife Photography -- “Being a nature-wildlife photographer is a demanding job … but all the hardship is forgotten when I make eye-to-eye contact with a wild animal, or experience the moment when a window in the clouds opens up, highlighting a landscape … I feel honored to be able to bring the inspiring beauty of nature to others.” [more inside]
posted by netbros on Apr 29, 2008 - 4 comments

E.J. Peiker, Nature Photgrapher There are a lot of nature photographers out there -- some better than Peiker and some worse -- but what fascinates me about Peiker's site is the number of photos available. A birdwatcher's dream, it features pages of photos of over 500 different species of birds, including an index devoted solely to wild waterfowl. Maybe animals are more your speed? How about nearly 150 pages of photos of wild animals (including my favorite - a quite handsome, flower-eating porcupine.) There's also a section for scenic photography featuring 23 states and 20 countries (or you can search by national park.) The photos are, unfortunately, not that big but there a ton of them, many of them quite pretty.
posted by LeeJay on Feb 29, 2008 - 13 comments

Unnatural Disaster: Global Warming and Our National Parks (PDF). A new report from the National Parks Conservation Association explores the impact of global warming on America's national parks. [Via Gristmill.]
posted by homunculus on Jul 17, 2007 - 9 comments

Draft legislation was published today that proposes that fifteen parcels in the National Park System be sold off for "purposes of commercial and residential development." Many of the parcels are in Alaska, but one is Theodore Roosevelt Island park, developed to honor one of our country's most recognizable environmentalists. It seems the Onion gives us the news from the future once again...Way to go, DCist for breaking the story!
posted by chinese_fashion on Sep 23, 2005 - 14 comments

Picturing America's National Parks
Quang-Tuan Luong became the first person to photograph all 58 US national parks in 2002 and continues to do so, with over 3,600 photographs of them online. Last month, Scott Parker completed his two-year project of visiting all the national parks and documenting them in paint and pastel.
posted by driveler on Dec 10, 2004 - 11 comments

Take a nifty little tour of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. (QTVR pics). (Alternate sites for non-QTVR people.)
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 8, 2004 - 5 comments

Tomorrow is National Public Lands Day, a day where you are invited into the national parks to build trails, plant trees and help improve YOUR parks. These national parks normally charge a fee for regular use. It is a growing trend to charge the populace to use their own public lands. Some people are for them (PDF), and others are against them.
posted by BrodieShadeTree on Sep 17, 2004 - 24 comments

Faith-Based National Parks? The National Park Service has recently approved the display of three bronze plaques bearing biblical verses at the Grand Canyon, as well as the sale of a creationist book on the canyon's origins (here's a review of the book by a professor of geology,) while at the same time blocking park rangers from publishing a scientific rebuttal to creationism. The NPS also wants to remove images of gay rights, pro-choice and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations from a videotape shown at the Lincoln Memorial, though they may be relenting.
posted by homunculus on Dec 24, 2003 - 45 comments

Large-scale marijuana cultivation in National Parks and forests. "[Growers] are killing wildlife, diverting streams, introducing nonnative plants, creating fire and pollution hazards, and bringing the specter of violence. For the moment, we are failing both parts of our mission, and that is tragic." This is not a new problem. "The reasons are obvious: the land is fertile, remote and free.  There's no risk of forfeiture, plantations are difficult to trace, and growers have land agents outmanned, outspent and outgunned."
posted by letitrain on Jun 14, 2003 - 18 comments

However you spell it, it sounds like good news. After five years of lobbying by the Aborigines, Australia set aside a huge chunk of the central Outback yesterday as the country’s largest national park. At 38,000 sq mi (98,000 sq km), Ngaanyatjarra is twice the size of Switzerland. This comes on the heels of the Canadian government's plans for ten new national parks and five new marine conservation areas over the next five years, a move greeted with skepticism by some. (And then there are those that say national parks are obsolete anyway). Has anyone been to any of these places?
posted by gottabefunky on Oct 11, 2002 - 12 comments

Been to a USGS site today? What about your favorite national park site? Probably not, since all are part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, whose external network connections have been severed due to electronic security concerns raised by the court in the case Cobell v. Norton (formerly Cobell v. Babbitt).

With no external email or access to the Internet could you do your job? How dependent is your workplace on electronic information access? (Since all their websites are down, I have no direct link to post. A copy of the memo was sent to the members by the admin of a USGS email distribution list.)
posted by carobe on Dec 7, 2001 - 16 comments