Some Issues Concerning National-Park Protection and Management in North America (Canada and United States)
Since the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 by the United States and of the Banff Hot Springs Reservation (future Banff National Park) in 1885 by Canada, the two main large North American states have set up a network of 100 national parks, attracting close to 100 million visitors per year. Parks are crucial to a large tourist system, organized at different scales, which relies on the highlighting of natural, geological or geomorphological phenomena as well as on the ties between past societies and today’s nature (interpretation programs). Territories coveted by competing activities, parks are the focus of intense issues involving different components of society which claim them for specific uses. These tensions contribute to producing, imposing or legitimizing rules to regulate the practices and uses of space in the parks (spatial strategies, management or control of flows, etc.).