Scientific American and others are reporting on a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that shows Americans have increasingly been increasingly been giving national parks, camping and other outdoor attractions since 1987. Largely to blame for the demise? The rise of the Web, movie rentals and other forms of electronic entertainment, the researchers say.
From SA:
“Folks are going out into nature much less and decreasingly every year,” says conservation ecologist Patricia Zaradic of the Environmental Leadership Program and co-author of the report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. “It would take 80 million more visits this year to get the per capita number back up to the level it was in 1987.”
Here’s a Q&A with the researchers.
The study was sponsored by The Nature Conservancy.
