VOA · America's National Parks
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed6:112016-07-22public domain
America's National Parks tours the great outdoors of the United States, from Yellowstone to the Everglades. Rich descriptive language about geography and nature, delivered at learner speed.
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01More than 300 million people from around the world visit America's national parks each year.
02They visit beautiful places like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite.
03They walk among the ancient giant sequoia trees and watch wolves, bison, and bears in their natural habitats.
04They are all managed by the U.S.
05National Park Service.
06This year, it is celebrating its centennial, or 100th anniversary.
07Jonathan Jarvis is the National Park Service director.
08Recently, he spoke to VOA about his time with the service.
09For the last 100 years, the National Park Service has been charged by the U.S.
10government to manage the very best of America, the very best places that represent both our natural and cultural heritage.
11So to be part of this organization and to be in the directorship is really a lifelong dream for me.
12He has worked at the Park Service for 40 years and been the director since 2009.
13I like to say the National Park Service is the only federal agency with the responsibility to ensure the public actually has fun.
14So we have a lot of places that are there for the enjoyment of the American people and visitors from around the world.
15Called the country's national treasures, these parks are found in every state.
16They cover over 32 million hectares from Guam to the Virgin Islands to Alaska.
17There are 412 sites in all.
18But they are not just places of wild nature.
19The national parks include thousands of historic buildings, presidential homes, monuments, and Civil War battlefields.
20They tell the story of the United States of America.
21The director says the parks are not just about seeing their beauty.
22We want you to learn something, to take something away, whether it's to learn about nature or plate tectonics or climate change, but also about history.
23Sometimes those history lessons are difficult ones about the darker side of America.
24Jarvis talks about the Manzanar National Historic Site in California.
25This is the place that tells the story of the internment of Japanese Americans in military-like camps during World War II.
26He explains that Japanese Americans were held in the camps by order from President Franklin Roosevelt when the U.S.
27was at war with Japan.
28Over 100,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up at Bayonet Point and put into prison camps for multiple years during the war just because of their ethnicity.
29The Park Service has been charged with telling that kind of story.
30Jarvis says it is an honor to serve as the director.
31It is a big job.
32The agency has 22,000 employees and gets help from another 400,000 volunteers.
33He says being in charge of incredible places is the best job in the government.
34Those incredible places are full of action, fires, volcanoes, and floods.
35He says there are also activities around the First Amendment of the U.S.
36Constitution, freedom of speech.
37The Parks also participate in activities around the Confederate flag used by the South in the Civil War and LGBT rights.
38The National Parks hold some of the country's most beautiful natural spaces.
39One thing the Park Service must deal with, however, is climate change.
40The parks are federally protected, but that does not shelter them from the effects of warming temperatures.
41Jarvis gives some examples, like the glaciers, the large bodies of ice on slopes in Glacier National Park.
42He says they will be gone within 20 to 25 years.
43He adds that the wildfires in the national parks and other public lands are burning at least a month longer than in years past.
44Because of climate change, he says, the forests are not even coming back the same way.
45We're seeing species being forced to migrate and not necessarily having the corridors to connect between parks and protected areas across the landscape.
46Heading into its second century, Jarvis says the new national parks will be more representative of women and minorities in the U.S.
47He says there are several key goals for the park's future.
48One of those goals, he says, is battling to protect these key natural resources.
49I hope that the Park Service thrives in its second century, that it is established on a sound foundation of financial support.
50But really the key is the public support, that the public still views the National Park Service as essential.
51I'm Ann Ball.
52I'm Ann Ball.
53Ann Ball.
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