As They Are: Exploring the National Parks

Tag: National Preserve

  • Detour: Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

    In 1978, Congress established Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, which combined an existing National Park unit with a Louisiana State Park and a French Quarter Visitor Center to create a National Park unit with a broad mandate to preserve and interpret the Mississippi River Delta region and southern Louisiana. That the Park is named after an enslaved people-smuggling pirate who was also a war hero underscores the complex layers of history, laid down like delta silt, in the region. Historically, the National Historical Park focuses on the Battle of New Orleans (the final battle of the War of 1812) and the pirate/privateer Jean Lafitte. Culturally, the Park focuses on New Orleans’ French Quarter, Creole culture, and Acadian/Cajun culture. Ecologically, the Park preserves 23,000 acres of bayous, swamps, marshes, and surrounding uplands at Barataria Preserve south of New Orleans, between the city and the Gulf of Mexico.

    It was to Barataria Preserve that Sean and I were headed immediately after attending a jazz concert on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 13 [2022].

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  • Detour: New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park

    The Arrowhead Jazz Band

    New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, established in 1994, preserves and shares “the cultural history of the people and places that helped to shape the development and progression of Jazz in New Orleans.” It is a Park that both interprets place-based history and also celebrates and participates in a living arts scene in its city. The Park Rangers at New Orleans Jazz are working musicians with performing careers in the city beyond their work at and through the Park.

    In September 2022, Land Trust Alliance Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference was held in person for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference is the most important in Bold Bison’s annual calendar, and we were excited to participate in person and see our friends and colleagues, many of whom we knew only through Zoom at that point. Sean and I had never been to New Orleans, so I suggested that he come along, which he was excited to do. It turned out that our friend Mayilu had been planning a trip to New Orleans with some girlfriends for the weekend before Rally, but her friends had had to cancel. So we decided to go early. Friends Nick, Josh, and Laura decided to tag along too.

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  • Detour: Big Cypress National Preserve

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    American Alligator

    Our journey to Everglades National Park began on Saturday, April 11 at Lake Ashton, the retirement community my parents were renting a house in for March and April. Sean and I had flown from Chicago after work on Thursday. Friday evening we’d spent packing for the Everglades and preparing a picnic lunch for Saturday afternoon.

    Our first destination was Big Cypress National Preserve, which protects 729,000 acres of the northwestern section of the Everglades ecosystem. Because of the habitat diversity in the Preserve, it is critical for the endangered Florida Panther. Some 30-40 panthers live in the Preserve, compared with 8-10 in Everglades National Park. Although it was part of the original proposal for the National Park, the Big Cypress Swamp was ultimately not included in the Park when it was established in 1947. Two major east-west thoroughfares bisect the Preserve, I-75 (nicknamed Alligator Alley) and US 41 Tamiami Trail.

    In the decade after Everglades National Park was established, developers from booming Miami proposed and began building the world’s largest jetport on Tamiami Trail near the center of the swamp. The developers had not anticipated the evolution in public understanding of the importance of protecting open space, wildlife, and water in south Florida. The outcry from conservationists and the general public was intense, leading to the cancellation of the jetport and the creation of the nation’s first National Preserve.

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