Is the Wilderness Act Still Protecting Nature?

The Landmark 1964 Law Is Now Preventing Effective Land Management and Critical Climate Research

At the end of 2023, four environmental groups sued the National Park Service and invoked the Wilderness Act to stop the replanting of trees following a catastrophic wildfire in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Around the same time, the National Park Service announced that it aimed to invoke the Wilderness Act to limit the use of fixed anchors on Yosemite’s iconic big wall climbs.

How did a law created 60 years ago to protect nature in undeveloped areas come to do something else entirely—and, in the process, become counterproductive to its own …

by Daniel T. Blumstein and Thomas B. Smith | April 22, 2024

How Public Is Your Favorite Public Park?

From New York’s High Line to Houston’s Buffalo Bayou Park, Wealthy Foundations Are Making Lovely Spaces That Lead to Less Equal Cities

by Kevin Loughran | August 24, 2023

Who owns your favorite park?

That might seem like a strange question. Many people assume that “we”—the public, the people—do. But from New York’s High Line to Houston’s Buffalo Bayou Park, …

A Park for Everyone Offers a ‘Vision of What California Might Be’

In Praise of Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, an L.A. Gem That Contains Multitudes

by Joe Mathews | February 2, 2021

It was tricky to get out of the house while the state was under the latest stay-at-home order, much less to find public places that offered both ample social distance …

Griffith Park, a Place of and Apart From Los Angeles

Like Its Namesake, Griffith J. Griffith, This Huge Urban Space Is a Story of Contradictions

by Casey Schreiner | May 21, 2020

Griffith Park is one of the wildest and largest urban parks in the United States. And yet it sits smack in the middle of the country’s second-largest city, a place …