Growing Interest In American Parks

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32077, 27 August 1969, Page 14

Growing Interest In American Parks

Within 20 years, visitors to national parks in North America would have to make reservations to get into them, Professor McTaggart Cowan, dean of graduates at the University of British Columbia, said in Christchurch .yesterTo. cope with the demand, Canada and the United States, would, be believed, need to double toe present national park are®. 1 Even today, he said, the greatest problem in the parks of North America was that too many persons were going through them. *‘We have traffic jams in some of our' parts the like of which I’m sure you haven’t seen On your main highways here in New Zealand.” Professor Cowan said that the demand for outdoor reCreation in North America was growing at a rate “which is quite frightening to those of us who are trying-to provide it.” The reasons for this demand were rising levels of income and greater leisure. Professor Cowan is an expert on conservation and was the only “foreigner” on the five-man committee set up by the: former United States Secretary of the Interior (Mr Udall)' to advise the Johnson Administration on national parks and wildlife refuges. The real problem, he said, was in knowing what to do with all the people. Plans were being formulated to zone park areas for high and low density use, ana still others as true wilderness

areas which would have virtually no management to run them. The wilderness programme in the United States was much further ahead than that of Canada.

In addition to the problem of too many people there was the problem of knowing, what to do wito the animals m toe parks. Only fish were allowed to be caught by sportsmen. The rest of the wild life' was controlled by skilled park'employees, who each year shot designated numbers. "Some of the meat is made available tn the Indians at little or no east Buffalo meat is sold to the highest bidders and occasionally buffalo steaks can be eaten in some of our cities,” he raid. Professor Cowan will spend the next three months working in the University of Canterbury’s zoology department Then be will go to Australia for six months to work wito the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research

Organisation. It had given him pleasure during the short time be had been in New Zealand that several New Zealanders bad recognised his voice, he said.

They had heard it in the nature television films, “The Living Sea” and "The Web of Life,” winch he produced. Both serie* have been shown in New Zealand a number of times.

“We had lots of letters from New Zealand and Australia while those series were running and I have lots Of addresses to call on,” he said.