Episode 131: The Growing Movement Toward 100 New US National Parks
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Co-founder and Executive Director of RESTORE: The North Woods
About
Michael Kellett, the co-founder and Executive Director of RESTORE: The North Woods, has over 35 years of experience in the land conservation movement. In 1994, he wrote the first white paper proposing a 3.2 million-acre Maine Woods National Park & Preserve, and has been actively involved in efforts to restore the endangered wildlife such as the eastern wolf, Atlantic salmon, and Canada lynx; to protect federal and state public lands from unsustainable logging and development; and to revive the national parks movement. From 1986 to 1992, he was the Northeast Director and Michigan Representative of The Wilderness Society, where he helped to pass national forest wilderness and national recreation area legislation and developed a proposal for a Maine Woods National Reserve. Michael has served on the board of American Lands Alliance, Thoreau Country Conservation Alliance, Thoreau Farm Trust, and Walden Forever Wild. He has visited 258 National Park System units across America. He lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Show Notes
Expanding National Parks: The Vision and Challenges
In this episode, Michael rejoins the podcast to discuss an ambitious project: the establishment of 100 new national parks in the United States. The conversation covers the extensive research and groundwork done over 15 years to identify these areas, the existing public lands that could be transformed, and the benefits of increased protected areas for climate stabilization, biodiversity, and public health.
The discussion highlights both the challenges and the potential for bipartisan support and grassroots mobilization to make this vision a reality. Michael shares insights into the political and economic aspects of such an endeavor, emphasizing the necessity for public engagement and collaboration with local activists and organizations.
00:00 Welcome Back, Michael!
00:19 The Vision for 100 New National Parks
01:26 Challenges and Progress in Conservation
03:20 The Popularity and Political Viability of National Parks
07:28 Economic and Social Benefits of National Parks
14:27 Addressing Concerns About National Park Costs
22:56 Potential New National Parks Across the U.S.
32:17 Mobilizing a National Movement for Conservation
36:37 Conclusion and Call to Action
Extra Credit
- Get notified as soon as newparks.org is live at Restore.org!
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.
It is so good to fight for what we really want, not just keep trying to plug the holes in the dyke, as you said. Thank you for hosting visionaries who have practical plans and actions.
We should turn the fact of lumbering our national forests costs taxpayers more than funding national parks into a bumper sticker!
I couldn’t help but ask myself while listening: where should lumber come from? Increasing human population on a finite planet seems to be a given now. If it were up to me, I’d close all national forests to logging (and other big extractions and disturbances), but do we have lumber substitutes? I realize this is a subject outside the sphere of rewilding, but it must be part of the equation of protection, don’t you think? Wood products for building seem a more basic need for human lives than most other extractions, except water and land for food. Perhaps others are working on this?
Thank you for your work.