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“Republic” is from res publica (public things or matters). When Republican President Ulysses S. Grant created the first national park at Yellowstone after the Civil War, he acted profoundly to, as Abraham Lincoln said, “bind up the nation’s wounds” by creating such a commonwealth in the spirit of democracy, owned by and open to all.
There is no more treasured public wealth to me than our public lands. I was blessed to grow up camping in national parks and national forest lands across the country, learning from them a citizen’s pride in our country and a desire to protect them. This led to my career in ecosystem protection and renewal as a founding director of the Maine non-profit SeedTree.
In that role, I’ve seen how our national park system was a model internationally. In Nepal, for example, Chitwan National Park was the first of a growing system of parks and reserves supported significantly by USAID, World Wildlife Fund, SeedTree and others. These have allowed tiger, rhino and other critically endangered wildlife and plant species to survive and thrive, along with the country’s largest industry and sustainable source of foreign revenue, tourism.
Our national parks and lands are not only the commonwealth of every citizen, but are economic engines for their neighboring communities. To “release” these to private industry would essentially be theft, a betrayal of trust that would wound the spiritual heart of America, diminishing our health and prosperity, our climate and environment, our unity as Americans, all while setting a disastrous example worldwide for those countries that still look to us for leadership.
May the Almighty forbid.
Carol Kamala Kinsey
Stockton Springs
