ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the conflicts are resolved in law and the extent to which such a solution has been achieved. Both Congress and the National Park Service (NPS) have established their respective understandings of how a national park should look and how conflicts arising from park management should be resolved. The ambiguous statutory language in the NPS Organic Act can be considered the cause, or one of the causes, of conflicts. Its instruction to the NPS to both promote and regulate enjoyment has directly caused management dilemmas on national park lands. Modern environmental statutes, such as the Wilderness Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), burden agencies' decision-making processes in either a substantive or a procedural manner. Congress passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA) in 1968 to counterbalance decades of dam, diversion and other river-related development. Regulations and management policies issued by the NPS are examined with a particular focus on the Management Policies of 2006.
