"America's" best idea was the separation of church and state.

What's done is done. The U.S. national parks are a treasure. Indigenous peoples should share in the wealth and beauty of these parks. I'd suggest that a significant fraction of each national park or monument visitor fee go towards reparations to the impoverished American Indians of our nation for their losses.

Having the indigenous people join in helping to manage the parks might not be a bad idea either. Today, the parks do belong to all of us.

Agreed that the forced removal of indigenous peoples from lands in the process of creating the national parks was one of many negatives. The history of the National Parks chronicled in the Burns/Dawson documentary is a macro-sized microcosm of the history of the US. As the documentary shows, the creation of the parks was full of upsides and downsides, classic conflicts between the forces of unbridled consumption and preservation, and inspirational ideas and awful "compromises" resulting from backroom deals. As you point out, this is about people in and not separate from nature. The same battles continue today. Hopefully there has been some evolution in thought through this process that can be transported to other parts of the world where the same struggles are taking place,

I have an even greater respect for the vision of John Muir. .

"A world view that holds people as intricately within and part of nature verses a world view that hold nature as a place to visit separate from people." Uh, did you actually watch the show? The message of setting aside land so that people could have the experience of seeing themselves as part of nature was repeated again and again. If indigenous people were allowed to "move back in' and inhabit these regions, then the possibility of undisturbed solitude necessary to stimulate the experience of connection to nature would be greatly diminished. even the indigenous people of america set aside tracts of land to be used for spiritual experience. example, in Crestone Colorado, waring tribes agreed that no fighting would take place in the Crestone area because it was considered sacred by all tribes. They didn't have the excessive exploitive and individual ownership mindset that we have,so protection of these places was a lot easier. That said, moving the indigenous people back into these parks to live and to protect the land would require building infrastructure and housing that would be in direct conflict with their surroundings.
to really protect these lands would require living in and with nature as hunter gathers etc; this would require little or no disturbance from the 'outside world'. You can't have millions of people a year visiting these parks without disrupting that type of lifestyle. another example are the amazonian tribes. To continue living the way that they do, requires vast tracts of land with small numbers of people. The exploding population of the world does not permit this scenario. reduce the population by half, have a fair distribution and use of resources, and enlighten 90% of the inhabitants and you have something. Well, we know that is not going to happen voluntarily so just hope that nature delivers our karma quickly and with minimum pain.

Americas best idea, has yet to be thought.

Not sure if it was on purpose, but kudos to CD editors for putting this article on at the same time (roughly) as the article about church/capitalism/Michael Moore. Greed, organized religion, and exploitation of nature go hand in hand.

While I recognize the direct result nationalizing large tracts of land had on native Americans I have to say they were victims who didn't really stand a chance. A least as citizens they share "ownership" of the Parks, just as non native American citizens do. It could be worse, these tracts of land could be owned by corporations.

As an aside, I watched most of the weeks presentation - I thought it was fantastic. Burns really does know how to make a documentary fascinating.

Thank you, Scott Klinger and Rebecca Adamson and Common Dreams for publishing this article.

"Belief that there is some land that we aggressively exploit and other land which we steadfastly insist remain pristine, is rapidly extinguishing the beliefs of the land’s previous caretakers, who saw all land as sacred and thereby worthy of protection."

I had this thought exactly while watching but kept quiet so as not to ruin the experience for my husband.

I would equate the national parks to zoos and aquariums where we trap nature and animals in some kind of sick, twisted time warp for our pleasure.

Removing indigenous people from these areas and pretending it is "America's best idea" is typical of Americans' shallow thinking.

While the parks are beautiful and restoration of nature is of great importance, all of nature and animals should be held in that same high regard.

Just National Diversions like Burns' "The War" was for the Bush surge in Iraq and now, his crowing these Parks, when our best idea at present should be Single-payer health care, so ALL of US are healthy enough to go out and enjoy them!

Something about this article looked odd (" ... Such human-phobic conservation"), and then I saw the lead author is director of Corporate Engagement.

Indigenous people lived lightly on the land with stone age technology and, history would indicate, were able to control their populations. Even in the late 19th Century, the rapacious attitude of "Euro-Americans" toward nature, plus their burgeoning technology - railroads, autos and road networks, weaponry, and all the rest, as well as the streams of immigrants - indicated doom for the natural world for those able to look ahead.

The US has passed the 300,000,000 population mark with no end in sight, and these are humans with immense "footprints" on the Earth. For the authors to generalize that the parks represent "a worldview that holds nature as a place to visit separate from People" is what one hears from anti-wilderness developers and apologists for the privatization of everything. The park concept, if anything, is one of the rare examples within this culture of respect for "the other" ... beings and processes outside of strict human needs. Indigenous cultures of the seven first nations likewise tended to identify areas to be left alone.

Yes, boysgramps, good point about Burn's documentaries and their timing.

While it's nice to think there are some good things about the U.S., PBS certainly mistakenly named the special as "our best idea".

Where, indeed, is the single-payer health care that would lift a great monetary, physical and psychological burden from all of our shoulders?

Now that would be America's best idea yet.

More acknowledgement of the plite of the Indigenous during the formation of national parks is a notable point, but damn, let's stop the whinning. All american people of color in the past have been raked over the coals at some point. I get it. What are we supposed to do about it? Should we now allow the natives to put a casino on Half Dome?

Who Owns Yellowstone National Park. You may be surprised.

The Founding Fathers would be shocked to learn that some of their successors have given control of key American sovereign territory to other nations.
Through an international treaty, the United States is allowing the United Nations and its member countries access to and control of American soil - in particular, our historic buildings and treasured wilderness.
In 1972, our government signed the United Nations' World Heritage Treaty, a treaty that creates "World Heritage Sites" and Biosphere Reserves." Selected for their cultural, historical or natural significance, national governments are obligated to protect these landmarks under U.N. mandate.1 Since 1972, 68 percent of all U.S. national parks, monuments and preserves have been designated as World Heritage Sites.2
Twenty important symbols of national pride, along with 51 million acres of our wilderness, are World Heritage Sites or Biosphere Reserves now falling under the control of the U.N. This includes the Statue of Liberty, Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, the Washington Monument, the Brooklyn Bridge, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite, the Florida Everglades and the Grand Canyon - to name just a few.
Most ironic of all is the listing of Philadelphia's Independence Hall. The birthplace of our Republic is now an official World Heritage Site. The very place where our Founding Fathers signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - the documents that set America apart from other nations and created the world's longest-standing democracy - is no longer fully under the control of our government and the American people.

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/84439

I don't want to disregard the previous ownership of the land by Native Americans and their tragedy of being displaced. But there is a common misconception that they were ideal stewards of the land, which these authors suggest. The evidence points to the opposite. If they were, there would have been more of the large Pleistocene fauna alive in North America such as woolly mammoths etc. Instead, these were slaughtered to extinction. The modern Makahs on NW Washington seem at times more interested in preserving treaty rights than preserving the Grey Whale, even if they have only taken 2, one of these illegally and totally wasted (it sank!). Tribal fisheries share in part responsibility for the decline of salmon runs to the point of arguing over the last fish in the Columbia. Of course, the Europeans and the Asians share the same guilt, and the Africans are catching up with us.

I think the modern concept of keeping certain areas more or less free of all human occupation is a noble concept, given our lack of stewardship as a species, irregardless of racial heritage!

The National Parks are a damn fine idea, you have to admit, especially when you view the idea in the context of nineteenth century views about progress. Jefferson wanted a country ocean-to-ocean packed with small farms and villages. The forests were for the taking, the gold for the digging. It was a heretical idea that land should be put aside--at first so that railroads and the tourist industry could make money--and later so that precious ecosystems could be saved. Give a little credit where it is due.

About allowing Native People to live inside of the Parks--I want to think about that. It seems to me that, in a sense, nobody owns any land. Who gave the deed to the Native People? Could they have taken it from other groups long ago? Maybe.

If Native Peoples were allowed to roam freely on the land taken from them, it is important to remember that they would not be living as their great-grandfathers did. There would be few ponies and more Toyotas, no arrow points and lots of rifles, only some storytelling and many hours of television. Better to simply take care of what we are given rather than return to the past. Crazy Horse and Chief Seattle are gone, though not forgotten. We should honor their memory by honoring the land that nurtured them. To me, that means setting aside the most beautiful places so they cannot be defiled by the greed of men.

I tried, several times, to watch this series on the national parks, but I found the verbal exaggerations and repeated inane references to and from "the bible" reduced its credibility to something on the level of fundamental revivalist pandering.
Yuck!

Can we have back some of the 300 to 400 million acres (15 to 25% of the landmass) that is currently utilized for meat/dairy, corn syrup and ethanol production?

Thanks for the thought provoking article. I think the story of the wolf was a most compelling one as well. Slaughtered and eliminated, it was finally reintroduced recently. Unfortunately, he didn't go into the hubbub that currently exists regarding the animal.

Not so sure about reintroducing people onto the land. What would that look like? Casinos? Then there is the carny barker aspect of it. "Come see native wild men living as they once lived hundreds of years ago!"

And for goodness sakes, would someone please dynamite Mount Rushmore! Is there a bigger and uglier bastardization of the natural world than that piece of crap?