Revisiting the original nature conservation model
Perspective from Robert B. Keiter
Yellowstone National Park—established in 1872 and widely regarded as the world’s first national park—represents the initial dominant model for nature conservation both here and abroad. Early US national park designations generally followed the “Yellowstone model,” which entailed setting aside broad swathes of publicly owned lands in the American West to protect native wildlife, scenic features, and wilderness-like settings. The new parks prohibited any permanent human presence, including the original Native American occupants. Other countries soon followed the same model, creating their own national parks and wildlife reserves that often also excluded human communities. It represented an enclave approach to nature conservation that has, over the years, proved problematic for failing to fully attend to the needs of natural and human communities.
Not long after Yellowstone was established, it became apparent that the high elevation park was not large enough to meet its wildlife conservation goals. In 1882, General Phil Sheridan coined the phrase “Greater Yellowstone” as part of an effort to address the absence of critical winter habitat within the park’s boundaries and highlight the need for landscape-scale thinking. Although park expansion efforts went nowhere, the establishment of forest reserves—now known as national forests—adjacent to Yellowstone during the ensuing decades helped with the habitat problem. Less than a century later, ecological science validated Sheridan’s concerns, giving rise to the “Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem” concept, which has further extended nature conservation efforts beyond the park’s boundaries.
Outside the United States, the “Yellowstone model” provided the impetus for early national park designations, but also proved problematic in many locations. Centuries-old human communities frequently occupied and used landscapes suitable for national park status. Local residents regularly depended on park resources for their sustenance and were unwilling to ignore wildlife depredation and damage incidents that threatened their livelihood. As in the US, it was also apparent that ecosystem-level conservation was required to protect native wildlife while inside and outside the parks, and to secure local cooperation with these efforts. Enter the community-based conservation idea, designed to promote coexistence by enlisting residents in the conservation effort through local participation in park management decisions, community economic benefits derived from the preservation efforts, and compensatory programs addressing wildlife incidents.
Over time, this evolving Yellowstone conservation model, which featured an enlarged focus on the entire ecosystem and the need to integrate community concerns into wildlife conservation efforts, has been institutionalized in the developed and developing world. One example is the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve program, which employs concentric zoning that emanates outward from a protected core national park and permits a heavier human presence and more intensive uses the greater the distance from the park. Another example comes from Nepal with its joint Makalu-Barun National Park and Conservation Area designation that reduces the level of protection in the surrounding conservation area. In Poland, buffer zones help protect wildlife straying outside its national parks.
A similar and related evolution is evident in US national park conservation policies. As time has passed, Congress has expanded the original national park idea by devising new designations—national monuments, national recreation areas, national preserves, national seashores, and the like—all of which deviate from the strict Yellowstone model of nature conservation. More recently, the ecosystem management idea has taken hold in the Greater Yellowstone region and elsewhere, informally yet effectively extending nature conservation efforts beyond park boundaries. Often drawing upon international models, local communities are now regularly brought into conservation efforts in recognition of the undeniable linkages between residents and nearby national parks. Significant efforts are also afoot to incorporate original Indigenous occupants and their traditional ecological knowledge into national park conservation efforts. And these trends will likely continue. Simply put, the original “Yellowstone model” has evolved as the US has adapted its nature conservation strategies to meet today’s challenges, sometimes employing conservation strategies that have originated elsewhere.
Robert B. Keiter is the Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, University Distinguished Professor, and founding Director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment at the University of Utah. His books include the forthcoming Conserving Nature in Greater Yellowstone: Controversy and Change in an Iconic Ecosystem, To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea, and other works.
