Naturalist John Muir and Yosemite National Park are featured in Part 1 of Ken Burns' newest PBS documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea". The widely acclaimed 12 hour, six-part series began Sunday, September 27th on PBS stations as Part 1 takes us through Yosemite National Park.

Do you know that there are more than 50 national parks and more than 100 national monuments, excluding national seashores and historic parks in the United States? This summer, the US Park Service is encouraging tourism to these parks to boost the economy by waiving entrance fees in one weekend for the month of August (August 15-16, 2009).

Gorilla population surveys, conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, have helped the government of Cameroon create a new national park which will protect more than 600 gorillas, along with other threatened species such as chimpanzees, forest elephants, buffaloes, and bongo.

Creating nature preserves, where elephants, gorillas and other endangered animals and plants can live without being killed or disturbed by humans, is probably our best bet for keeping these species alive.

Natural barriers like waterfalls play an important role in preventing lake trout from spreading through Glacier National Park, so maintaining those barriers should be a priority, Montana State University researchers said after conducting a four-year study in the park.

China plans to create a vast national park in the remote north-western region of Xinjiang that would be bigger than Yellowstone National Park in the United States, the world's first.

For years, wildlife managers and biologists in Africa have known that large mammals were disappearing outside reserves. There are historical accounts describing impressive populations of large mammals resident or migrating through areas that are nowadays devoid of anything bigger than passerines and rodents and that are now perhaps a patchwork of small scale land holdings instead of natural vegetation.