Impacts on National Park Service units from surrounding land use
Wilkin DC, Bradley C, Novickis L. 1994. Impacts on National Park Service units from surrounding land use. Technical Report NPS/WRUA/. NPS Cooperative Park Studies Unit. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Changes in surrounding land use more and more often pose substantial threats to National Park Service (NPS) units. This research was undertaken to discover how best to obtain early warning of such potential changes, and how most effectively to respond to them. Given the limited financial resources of the NPS compared to those available to agents of change outside park boundaries, this study suggests most pragmatically that early warning and protection are going to have to derive principally from the strength of the relationship between NPS units and the communities in which they are embedded. This requires NPS superintendents to work closely with their surrounding communities, to develop strong links therewith, and to understand the values that influence community interaction with the NPS. The major effort in this study was surveying community values in the middle Verde River watershed affecting Tuzigoot (TUZI) and Montezuma Castle (MOCA) on the one hand, and those of Flagstaff area residents affecting Walnut Canyon (WACA) on the other. Based on these community values, the authors suggest several approaches to forging more productive interactions between these communities and the NPS. (Copied verbatim from the report.)