National Parks met with disappearing alligator populations and littering

Due to 25% of National Park funding being cut, the superintendents of the committee are forced to find cost-effective solutions to two major problems: an alligator population decline and littering from the younger generation.

National Park representatives met to come up with solutions on how to increase funding. An anti-advertising proposition implied for advertisements to be limited to park souvenirs. It was pushed so that National Parks wouldn’t increase advertisements to make up for lost funding.

“[We must ] celebrate the beauty of the park,” said the Biscayne National Parks representative. He believed an increase in advertising would spoil this.

However, as many representatives pointed out, untraditional parks such as the National Mall would suffer, as advertising plays a large role in the parks funding.

This proposition failed.

Yosemite National Park proposed to have in-park yoga classes targeted at college students. The representative believes students coming from a stressful environment can relax, and enjoy what each park has to offer. This was a hit, especially for Ryan Zinke, who said he enjoys yoga at National Mall National Park.

When it came time to talk about disappearing alligator populations, there was a dispute among representatives in regards to private corporations aiding in governmentally run conservation efforts. The superintendent of Arches National Park claimed, “The more you work with private institutions, the more they get involved with the government.”

The primary concern for those against utilizing private companies when tackling environmental issues is that a sense of power will be lost as a result of partnering. Although the people on this side of the argument fought hard, a majority agreed upon instating the “Save the Gators” act.

This act utilizes a Google game, created in a previous session, entitled “Chase the Snap” where players must recreate photos of other competitors. With the help of Google, this act helps educate park-goers, and prevent any harm to animals whilst people are visiting.

During the committee, video evidence surfaced, in which a park ranger failed to give a ticket to a litterer. To the committee, this video proved that the younger generation was failing to throw trash in the designated bins, and a large amount of trash was littering the park.

Superintendents agreed that park rangers were unable to ticket litterers effectively. Many supported the idea of sectioning out parts of the park to different rangers in an effort to catch litterers, as well as for regularly scheduled patrols and that young people were not disposing of waste properly.

Many solutions were proposed, such as the installation of security cameras. Other ideas included the addition of trash cans with depictions of popular television characters encouraging disposing waste in the correct place, communicating with school systems, and asking private companies to make and provide national parks with biodegradable water bottles to be sold.

It is clear that as time goes on the issue of litter will be addressed and the issue of poaching, which was revealed to be the reason for the decrease in alligator populations towards the end of the session, will be attacked as well.