An Economic Case For Preservation
A Citizen-Times article today discusses a study on spending in national parks with some interesting figures.
“…American taxpayers in 2005 spent $2.6 billion on the National Park System, and the return on their investment was more than $12 billion,” the park service said.
Locally, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park attracted 9.2 million visitors in 2005 who spent $652 million in surrounding communities and supported more than 14,000 local jobs.
People want to visit the Smokies because they love beautiful, natural scenery. They come for hiking trails, pristine trout streams and vast panoramas of undisturbed wilderness.
And they spend a ton of money nearby.
Isn’t this an economic case for preserving as much public land as possible?
Whatever the state spends on Chimney Rock, for example, we are sure to get back over time…
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