CODY, Wyo.-
Communities that serve as gateways to the nation’s national parks need to launch a “no child left inside” program to make children more comfortable with nature and encourage long-term support of wild places, Suzanne Lewis, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, proposed.
“Visitation is going down nationwide in the National Park Service,” Lewis said. “For Yellowstone in 2006, we’ll finish up at about a 1 percent drop” from the 2005.
Some observers say kids increasingly feel less comfortable with nature, and Lewis said she sees an ongoing debate about “nature deficit syndrome.” She cited “Last Child in the Woods,” a book by Richard Louv that postulates that today’s Internet generation is less likely to identify with nature.
“When I grew up in suburban Ohio, we played in the woods all day long,” Lewis said. “But today, a lot of kids aren’t comfortable in the outdoors. When you add computers, video games, TV and all those things, we’re absolutely producing a culture of children that don’t identify with the outdoors.”
Lewis said that general lack of interest in the outdoors among today’s children could spell bad news for national parks and the communities that depend on them.
“If that is true, then who is going to come to parks in the next 20 years?” Lewis asked. “And when they do come, what will be their comfort level in the parks. What will they want in these wild places?”
Such a declining level of interest in nature could mean a lack of long-term stewardship for places like Yellowstone National Park, Lewis said. But she said the trend also represents an opportunity for Cody and other communities.
“When your visitors come to Cody, you have to look at how to market yourself,” Lewis said. “What are you doing to help families have a good experience in the outdoors?”
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