On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 2:43 PM OSM Volunteer stevea <stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote: > 1) As states are as sovereign as the federal government (for purposes of > saying "what a park is around here"), the tag boundary=national_park has > rather widely been applied to state parks and state-park like lands. (I know > Kevin Kenny has made a good case for why he uses this tag on certain New York > state "lands" of a certain sort. And a lot of state parks in California and > other states get this tag.
More or less repeating my earlier argument: I've applied this tag in exactly two instances: the 'blue line' that surrounds the Adirondack and Catskill Parks. This line delineates the portion of the state legally known as the Forest Preserve, and enshrined in article XIV of the state constitution: > The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the > forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest > lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any > corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed > or destroyed. Note that this land is an entirely different kettle of fish from the areas entitled 'State Park' in New York. Article XIV confers a sui generis protection, being enshrined at the constitutional level. Unlike any of the US National Parks, which could be wiped out by a simple Act of Congress, altering the Forest Preserve needs a constitutional amendment. The *easiest* way to pass such a thing is a supermajority vote of both houses of the state legislature, in two consecutive sessions (with a general election intervening), followed by a majority in a popular referendum. A number of amendments have been passed to Article XIV, but they've all been relatively small-scale changes to the state's holdings, to allow for construction and maintenance of highways, well fields, utility lines, and similar facilities. Generally, the amendments that concede land have all been accompanied by adding land of greater value elsewhere. The Forest Preserve plays a similar role to a large National Park. The Catskill Park is of a similar size to a medium National Park like Joshua Tree; the Adirondack Park would be able to fit Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon and Yosemite, with room to spare. LIke some of the National Parks, the state landholdings are complex, with many inholdings and leaseholds where the state does not own the land (but highly regulates its use, including in many instances mandating recreational access when active logging is not in progress). The definition that appears in the Wiki: > A national park is a relatively large area of land declared by a government > (just as boundary=administrative are declared/recognised by governments), to > be set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, as well as the protection of > the natural environment and/or cultural heritage of an area. This would > normally also come with restrictions on human activity, particularly > development, for the protection of wildlife and scenery. National parks are > often named "X national park" (with translation). is apposite. If US 'National Parks' are 'relatively large', then these two qualify. The Adirondack Park is larger than any except for the Alaska mega-parks; the Catskill Park is about of a size with Joshua Tree or Yosemite. They are set aside for the purposes mentioned in the Wiki article. They come with stringent restrictions on development. They simply are not administered by the Federal government, because they were established in 1885, thirty-one years before the National Park Service was established. The only National Parks in existence were Yellowstone (Wyoming was not yet a state), Mackinac (turned back to the State of Michigan in 1895), and Rock Creek (an urban park in the DIstrict of Columbia, and so likewise outside any state). Yosemite and Sequoia were in existence, as California state parks. _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
