ArizTravel.com

Photo: Arizona Office of Tourism

On a recent Diane Rehm Show broadcast on National Public Radio, guest host Susan Page spoke with historian, Douglas Brinkley, and Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, about President Theodore Roosevelt’s vision for preserving America’s wilderness and the future of our national parks and monuments.

The national park system will celebrate its centennial in 2016 and national parks like the Grand Canyon continue to top the list of desired vacation destinations. When asked in a 2009 survey¹, over 66% of respondents expressed interest in vacationing to a National Park destination; the number one answer.

Table: Arizona Office of Tourism

How important are the national parks to the nation? According to Secretary Salazar,

[National Parks] play a very major role in terms of the economy and jobs for America. They also play a very major role in the health of our communities and, they are…what connects up the people of this country to our lands, our soils, our air, our wildlife. They’re very special places.

Special places, indeed. The National Park System received over 400 million visitors last year. That’s more visitors than people who attended Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA and NASCAR events combined².  But even so, that’s fewer visitors that in previous years.  So what has happened?  Again, Secretary Salazar:

I think the nation and the nation’s population is suffering from Nature Deficit Disorder. That is, that we have fewer and fewer people getting out into the outdoors… Today, on average, young people are spending 4 minutes a day in the outdoors, and, it is said, 6 hours a day in front of a television or a computer. So one of our challenges of these times is really to reverse that and to get young people – all people – out into the outdoors, as part of a healthy Americans agenda.

Writer Douglas Brinkley agreed.

Young people no longer know the difference between an oak or a maple. We’ve lost their sense of…the difference between birds. Or just getting that fresh air for your health and clearing your mind.

Source: Library of Congress

Here in Arizona, we’re lucky that the antidote to Nature Deficit Disorder is right in our very own backyard. Visit a national park. Check out a national monument, a state park, or a wildlife refuge. Make an annual trip to the Grand Canyon.  Why not hop in the car and take your family out for a day of kayaking on Watson Lake in Prescott? Or horseback riding in Mayer? Or whitewater rafting on the Upper Salt River? Teddy Roosevelt would certainly approve. Said Brinkley,

[Teddy Roosevelt]…loved the American West. And he liked…urban centers – where you’re within a day’s reach of…wilderness areas. Just a weekend in the woods or on a lake or canoeing or by a stream could replenish the spirit and get you back to your work grind… But to just tune out our natural surroundings, Roosevelt thought was not just a mistake, but…unpatriotic.

In preparation for the 2016 centennial of the national park system, make a resolution to make the outdoors a part of your life and your kids’ life every day. Turn off the TV, grab a camera, a magnifying glass for bug inspection and a field guide to local birds and wildlife and engage your family in curing their Nature Deficit Disorder.

¹Arizona Office of Tourism – Ypartnership/Yankelovich National Leisure Travel Monitor

²National Public Radio

Tags: children, Diane Rehm, Douglas Brinkley, family, Grand Canyon, Ken Salazar, kids, National Parks, NPR, outdoors, weekend trips, wildlife