Introduction
Our MIP day was on Sunday 8th May 2011 at Zion National Park, Utah. The activity was to collect information on initiatives in place at Zion National Park to evaluate the extent to which it is a good example of “sustainable tourism”. Before we arrived at the park we were looking forward to the day because we were unsure what to expect, compared to the other national parks, and it was our MIP day so it would be different to the other days.
Figure 2: The MIP's. From left to right... Ritchie, Sandeep and Matthew
Visitor Centre (built in 2000)
The first place we visited was the Zion Canyon Visitor Centre. We started by looking at the displays, taking leaflets and going into the gift shop. This gave us an idea how Zion National Park implemented sustainable tourism. The displays outside the visitor centre gave us very useful information about the history of the park, geology, wildlife, plant life and how they are being environmentally sustainable. Some information we found out about the sustainability of the visitor centre via the display boards was:
· Built incorporating natural features
· Energy efficient building while being attractive
· Operating expenses while protecting the environment
· Natural lighting and ventilation
· Passive downdraft cool towers
· Trombe wall heating
· Roof mounted photovoltaic system reducing energy use by 70% and prevention of releasing 181 tons of CO2
After finding out all this information we then decided to have a little look into gift shop within the visitor centre. The gift shop we found was very good offering a range of gifts and souvenirs which people could buy; though we found out they didn’t offer any snow globes which we all found very disappointing. Before we left the gift shop after buying all our little bits and bobs we had two things we wanted to do, firstly we bought our junior ranger books so we were able to gain our junior ranger badge which we have been doing at every park, secondly we all had to get our notebook stamped with the passport stamp which also we had been getting at all the national parks. After all this time and getting bored of what the visitor centre offered we then moved on to the shuttle buses to move onto our next destination.
At the Visitor Centre there was a big focus on the shuttle bus. Compared to the other national parks we visited this focus stood out. The Grand Canyon for example also had a shuttle bus service but they did not seem to promote its sustainability and there were so many areas to park vehicles.
There were many boards showing the routes tourists can take and why the shuttle was put in place. The shuttle bus service only began in 1999. Before this there were around 5,000 tour buses, cars and motor homes travelling into the narrow routes of the park with only 450 car park spaces. The shuttle bus helped ease travel around the park by reducing traffic jams and competition for the limited car parking spaces available. We found a quote on one board saying “By taking the shuttle you become an active partner in preserving the canyons future”. As MIP’s we found this was a very good initiative in encouraging the use of the shuttle and found them really easy to use. They were very busy each time we got on from stop to stop but they were a very convenient way of travel around the park. They were very frequent and regular. The most amount of time we personally, as a group, waited for a shuttle was around 2 minutes.
Zion Human History Museum
At the History Museum we attended a Ranger-led Programme on Californian Condors (this was to gain our Junior Ranger Badge). We found this talk very interesting and two of us volunteered at the front to show how big a Condor’s wing span is, which made us all chuckle (refer to photo below).
At the end of the talk we took the opportunity to ask more questions about the Condor’s and found out that the main group that keep track of them are called Paragon Fund, who work with Zion National Park. They are kept tracked of by the use of radio transmitters and tagged with specific numbers. We all then cheekily asked questions about how the Rangers are sustainable at the park. They are encouraged to ride bikes around the park and use hybrid/electric vehicles. The Ranger said how solar panels were put in last year and also told us how other initiatives to encourage sustainable tourism maybe put in place in the near future, for example a bio fuel burner instead of the boiler at the park. After the ranger talk we walked inside the museum to see if we could find out any information about the park and sustainability though we didn’t find a lot of information we did find a brilliant quote about their mission for the park. The quote said “our mission is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations”.
After only finding the quote inside the information we decided to move into the shop to get sworn in as junior rangers. This didn’t quite go to plan as the women looking at our junior ranger books kept moaning about how they weren’t completed blah blah blah so we left quickly while moaning about how she was annoying!. Outside we filled up our 1lt water bottles ready to get the shuttle bus so we could start our amazing hiking adventure along emerald pools trail. Here we found out about how the park saves on waste and water with the display above the spring taps, this told us that the park:
· Works out 167 bottles per person and 38 billion end up in landfill sites
· End to end they would circle the equator 217 times
· Uses 20 million barrels of oil per year and creates more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 to make these water bottles
· Every time you fill up a reusable bottle you save one bottle from landfill
· Save money
· You can refill an average reusable bottle with tap water once a day for 10 years, 5 months, 21 days before it would cost you for one quarter of bottled water
- Americans use 50 billion plastic water bottles annually
· At every shop we went to you couldn’t buy bottled water because Zion national park promoted the reuse of bottles for water to save waste (refer to picture below).
Figure 4: Signs promoting the use of re-usable bottles all around Zion National Park.
We then jumped onto the shuttle bus which luckily arrived just when we decided to leave and make our journey to our next destination where it starts to get very very interesting!
Emerald Pools Trails via Zion Lodge
We found the Lower part of the trail so much fun when we ran under the waterfalls. We did not expect to be able to get so close and so wet. This trail was not so challenging but still so entertaining. From here one of us got so keen and ran up to the Upper part of the trail. The other two ran up after him. Here we first saw a pool. It felt so tranquil we carried on climbing up to get a better look of the waterfall here. Two of us clambered up a huge rock and sat on the ledge at the top. The other group member decided this would definitely end up with a leg in a hole between rocks so stood back and took lots of photos. At this point we were recommended by others on our fieldtrip to have a look at the Middle part of the trail. On the way down we turned off to this trail and found the other pool. Here there were fewer tourists as we believe this may be due to it not being signposted too well. There were a lot of danger signs here due to how slippy it was. A very friendly tourist took a photo of us all and one of us soaked the other two by kicking up water. We then decided it was time to run back down and through the waterfalls that soaked us on the way up. On the way down these waterfalls got us even more wet. This trail on the Upper bit was more challenging and we got to clamber over and up rocks (well worth it). We then arrived at the Zion Lodge.
Zion Lodge
Here we did not find any promotion of sustainable tourism but they did have the Spring Water taps and many places to throw away trash. More importantly we discovered our lecturer was sooo right about the pizza being bang tidy. We decided this could be our treat for completing the trail and then discovered it was nearly time to leave Zion and meet our lecturers back at the Visitor Centre. We took the shuttle bus back down and completed our Junior Ranger Programme by getting sworn in. The people at the Visitor Centre were a lot friendlier than at the Museum and we gained our badges J
Conclusion
Zion National Park seemed to care a lot more about sustainable tourism compared to the other parks we visited earlier in our fieldtrip. There was a lot more focus on the sustainability of the park and promotion of it for all tourists to see. Zion is in the top 10 National Parks of America when it comes to the amount of visitors and still yet relatively new with their facilities (for example the Visitor Centre building). As MIP’s we were thrilled we had this activity at this park and all agreed it was possibly the best National Park we had visited in the South West USA. If we were able to choose a place that would be worth spending more than one day at we would definitely choose Zion National Park. Personally we felt a bit gutted there was not enough time to do another trail and get a better look at the park.
Located in South West Utah close to the border of Nevada and Arizona.
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