Issues Within Our National Parks.

One thing about starting to visit these areas is that its started to make me aware of the kind of issues that we have within the National Park system right now so I thought it'd be a good idea to have a look at some of them just to help with the understand of how these might effect the conservation of the areas.

Balancing the impact of Tourism.
Of course for any National Park to work tourism form the major part of the financial income for the people who live and work there and for the park authorities themselves but there is a major downside as well to masses of people visiting, this site nationalparks.gov.uk has loads of useful facts and figures which really get to the heart of the problem and looks at how to manage the landscapes to make them sustainable  for future generations because after all that's what the system was set up for in the first place. A lot of the things they take about doing are pretty simple like maintaining footpaths to limit erosion in the landscape and making sure people understand to take there rubbish home with them are just simple stick it in a bin so that the few don't spoil these areas for the rest of use. For me personally I found most of this site very useful because my aim for this section is to help encourage people to get out and enjoy the landscapes we have in this country but after reading some of this I find myself thinking maybe it isn't the best thing to do if all it'd do would be to course more damage to some of these most fragile ecosystems.

Impact of Wind Farms.
With our ever growing need for renewable energy more and more areas are being considered for wind farm sites and some of these are located within the national park system. Take this article printed back in 2009 as an example telegraph.co.uk here concerns where already be raised about plans to build in areas of natural beauty and people need to understand that a balance had to be struck because of our growing need but clear local people fear the effect it would have on the landscape and whether as a result tourism would decrease meaning their lively hoods would be effected. Today a similar issues is beginning to arise with the idea of fracking taking place in areas such as the Lake District. The question is whether at the end of the day will big business and the needs of this country win out over the beauty of the landscape?

Climate Change.
With our altering world climate pressure on species grows because of changes in there habitat produced by increased rain fall, longer drier spell, harder winters etc. So the task the park authorities face is how can they protect what is most at risk while still making the areas accessible for people to enjoy. In a way the problem is tied to the tourism issue with increased traffic levels in and around the parks but you can't really stop all vehicles from entering the area, that'd just discourage people from coming in the first place. Its more learning how to manage these areas so that the species have the best possible chance to thrive and hopefully adapt as much as we have to to a our ever changing world.