Thank You Teddy (& the squire from Hyde Park)

In 1908, one hundred years ago, Theodore Roosevelt designated 1442 square miles of the Olympic Peninsula as a protected area. 30 years later Franklin Roosevelt upgraded the designation to that of a National Park. Teddy, during his Presidency, preserved enough land in national forests, parks, landmarks and other designations to cover all of the east coast states from Maine to Virginia, plus Vermont, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Land he preserved includes what would become the Grand Canyon, Olympic and Grand Teton national parks. We just returned from a tour of the periphery of the Olympic National Park, where the roads that allow us access to places have amazing names like “the Hoh”, Shi-Shi, Elwha, Sol Duc, Hurricane Ridge, Hama Hama, Duckabush, and Staircase. It’s clear that there aren’t the same opportunities to leave geographic legacies like this for our generation, but don’t you think that maybe there is something we could do that might have equally large benefits to future generations? Perhaps we should remind our elected officials that the current debate over climate change and “cap and trade” legislation could be thought of from this perspective?