The establishment of National Parks in the outer echelon of the Western United States and the atmosphere and arguable success of such parks led to efforts to launch similar endeavors on the east coast of the United States. Though they are said to immolate western National Parks, eastern National Parks come with their own set of problems. The most significant difference between the east coast and western parks are the different ecosystems. Mark Kinzer succinctly states, “Not every important natural area makes it into the National Park System. For this to happen, an area needs advocates—and luck” (Kinzer 1). This difference brings about a plethora of challenges. The history of any National Park should note the importance of human impact whether accidentally or purposefully.
Mark Kinzer’s Nature’s Return: An Environmental History of Congaree examines the …show more content…
Kinzer approaches the topic of the Congaree National Park from an Environmental History standpoint. In his introduction Kinzer articulates “Congaree is a different kind of park, of a later era, meant less to preserve natural wonders and scenic grandeur than to protect an intact remnant of a major ecosystem (Kinzer, ). This cross-section of South Carolina, though not completely untouched, has been preserved and protects America’s largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forrest.
Conversely, in The Wild East: A Biography of the Great Smoky Mountains, Margaret Lynn Brown offers a more complex history of not only the environment of the Great Smoky Mountains but social, cultural, economic and even labor histories of the plethora of people groups that inhabited the Great Smoky Mountains. Brown successfully shows how the development of the Great Smoky Mountain’s National Park negatively effected its native peoples as well as the flora and fauna that have existed their for thousands of years. (ADD