User:ZephyrBlade/sandbox


 * I intend on contributing to the National Park System Wikipedia page in highlighting the environmental health benefits and the accessibility of the National Park System. I want to expand the section on accessibility to include how accessible the park is to various demographics, subdivided by race and sex. I may want to incorporate statistics regarding visitation rates into the "visitor" section of the page. I also want to explore deeper into the "concessions" section which talks about the contracts that national parks often have with private businesses to draw more attention to the park.

Draft:

National Parks present a wealth of benefits to the visitor. In addition to providing essential ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration(Sanchez-Azofeifa 2007) and paying for themselves in terms of preserving cultural heritage(Lee 2002), parks also provide physical, mental, and emotional health benefits to the consumer. Exposure to scenes of national parks lowers blood pressure levels and reduces levels of anxiety. (Frumkin 2001). (Maller 2006)

However, levels of accessibility between demographics greatly differ. A typical park visitor possesses the characteristics of being white, middle-aged, earning between $50,000 to $70,000 and from the United States. (Byrne 2009) Communities with people of low-income and Latinos, African-Americans, and Asian-Pacific Islanders are located further from parks than white communities. In addition, areas with communities of color recieve fewer funding resources to establish parks. (Wolch 2005)

In areas where black populations have high levels of access to a parks, discrepancies between park quality may still persist. In Baltimore, Maryland, an area that is predominantly black, the creation of parks for use by black communities was not followed by upkeep. (Boone 2009)

Sources:

Lee, Choong-Ki, and Sang-Yoel Han. "Estimating the use and preservation values of national parks’ tourism resources using a contingent valuation method." Tourism management 23.5 (2002): 531-540.

SÁNCHEZ‐AZOFEIFA, G. ARTURO, et al. "Costa Rica's payment for environmental services program: intention, implementation, and impact." Conservation biology 21.5 (2007): 1165-1173.

Bedimo-Rung, Ariane L., Andrew J. Mowen, and Deborah A. Cohen. "The significance of parks to physical activity and public health: a conceptual model." American journal of preventive medicine 28.2 (2005): 159-168.

Frumkin, Howard. "Beyond toxicity: human health and the natural environment." American journal of preventive medicine 20.3 (2001): 234-240.

Maller, Cecily, et al. "Healthy nature healthy people:‘contact with nature’as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations." Health promotion international 21.1 (2006): 45-54.

Cohen, Deborah A., et al. "Contribution of public parks to physical activity." American Journal of Public Health 97.3 (2007): 509-514.

Wolch, Jennifer, John P. Wilson, and Jed Fehrenbach. "Parks and park funding in Los Angeles: An equity-mapping analysis." Urban geography 26.1 (2005): 4-35.

Byrne, Jason, Jennifer Wolch, and Jin Zhang. "Planning for environmental justice in an urban national park." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 52.3 (2009): 365-392.

Boone, Christopher G., et al. "Parks and people: An environmental justice inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99.4 (2009): 767-787.