News & Events Why Investing In Parks Is Smart Economic Stimulus

The recently passed economic stimulus package includes $905 million for revitalizing our National Parks, many of which have suffered the same kind of neglect as other environmental causes during the past eight years of the Bush Administration. Such expenditures will both put people to work and restore public facilities at America's most magnificent natural areas – from the Hudson Valley's Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites to the Grand Tetons and Denali National Park in Alaska. The Department of the Interior estimates that the funds will create 100,000 jobs over the next two years.

This investment builds on a proven precedent during other periods of economic hardship. During the Great Depression, one of President Franklin Roosevelt's chief means of boosting employment and jump-starting local economies was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). According to a fascinating Web site dedicated to "Roosevelt's Tree Army," as the CCC was dubbed, the 3.4 million men engaged in the program accomplished $2 billion worth of work. Those are 1942 dollars; adjusting for inflation, that amounts to more than $25 billion today. ...