Now in a fully updated edition, this invaluable reference work is a fundamental resource for scholars, students, conservationists, and citizens interested in America's national park system. The extensive collection of documents illustrates the system's creation, development, and management. The documents include laws that established and shaped the system; policy statements on park management; Park Service self-evaluations; and outside studies by a range of scientists, conservation organizations, private groups, and businesses. A new appendix includes summaries of pivotal court cases that have further interpreted the Park Service mission.

"Section 6 of Public Law 95-192, the Soil and water resources conservation act of 1977..., requires the Secretary of Agricultre to develop a national soil and water conservation program to guide the Department's future conservation activities on the Nation's private and other nonfederal lands. This document, prepared in response to the Act, is based on an appraisal of existing resource conditions and trends and projected resource needs. It discusses the status of soil, water, and related resources; identifies resource problem areas; analyzes the effectiveness of existing conservation programs; establishes objectives for a national soil and water conservation program; develops alternative programs for meeting these objectives; assesses environmental impacts that would result from implementing the alternative soil and water conservation program; and presents the procedures under which the new programs would be evaluated."--p. iii.