美景当前却只见人潮？美国人也有这个烦恼

美景当前却只见人潮？美国人也有这个烦恼

　　

 

　　The rocky shorelines, shifting deserts and winding canyons of the country’s 59 national parks have been hallmarks of American vacations for generations.

　　美国59个国家公园的岩石海岸、流动沙漠和蜿蜒峡谷，一直是几代人心目中的美式假期的胜地。

　　But the number of park visitors has reached an unprecedented level, leaving many tourists frustrated and many environmentalists concerned about the toll of overcrowding.

　　但造访国家公园的游客已经多到前所未有的程度，这让很多人败兴而归，也让很多环保主义者忧心于人流过大的后果。

　　In 2016, the National Park Service tracked a record 331 million visits, and after a busy summer, the system is likely to surpass that number this year. In August alone, some 40 million people came through park service gates.

　　据国家公园管理局(National Park Service)统计，2016年，国家公园系统创纪录地接待游客3.31亿人次。今年的数字可能还会更高。光是8月份，客流量就达4000万人次。

　　Shuttle buses at Zion National Park, in southwest Utah, filled like sweaty subway cars. Selfie-takers clogged the slender path through the Narrows slot canyon, one of the park’s best-known attractions. And at the top of Angels Landing, an iconic trail of switchbacks on the east side of the park, some portable toilets were marked off with a sign: “Due to extreme use, these toilets have reached capacity.”

　　在犹他州西南部的锡安国家公园(Zion National Park)，班车内颇为拥挤，人们身上汗津津的，犹如置身地铁车厢。自拍者堵塞了穿越隘口的小径——这一狭缝型峡谷是该公园最知名的景点之一。在公园东侧标志性的“之”字形天使降临步道顶端，一些流动厕所上的标牌上写着：“由于使用量过大，这些厕所的承载力已达极限。”

　　Zion is among the most visited parks in the system and is particularly prone to crowding because many of its most popular sites sit in a narrow six-mile canyon. In 2016, about 4.3 million people visited, up 60 percent from a decade ago.

　　锡安是美国客流量最大的国家公园之一，而且尤其容易出现拥挤，因为它的很多最受欢迎的景点都坐落在一道窄窄的6英里长峡谷内。2016年，该公园的游客数量约为430万人次，比十年前高出60%。

　　So this year, park managers announced they were considering a first for any national park: requiring reservations for entry. A final decision is expected in 2018.

　　因此，锡安的管理者们今年宣布，他们正考虑采取一项所有国家公园都从未采取过的举措：游客需提前预约方能入园。最终的决定预计将在2018年做出。

　　“We don’t have a choice,” said Jack Burns, who has worked in Zion since 1982. “We have to do something. If this going to remain a place of special importance for generations, we have to do something now.”

　　“我们别无选择，”从1982年在锡安工作至今的杰克·伯恩斯(Jack Burns)说。“我们必须有所行动。这个地方在几代人心目中有着特殊的意义，要想继续保存下去，我们必须立刻有所行动。”

　　The National Park Service was created in 1916 to protect the country’s growing system of parks and monuments. Its mandate is to conserve scenery and wildlife while also protecting visitor enjoyment for generations to come. For years, the lack of a reservation system for park entry aligned with the service’s ethos of democracy and discovery: Anyone could come, pretty much anytime. (The service has long required permits for hiking in more remote areas.)

　　国家公园管理局成立于1916年，旨在保卫美国日益扩大的国家公园和纪念区系统，其使命是在保护风景和野生动植物的同时，确保一代代到访的游客都能体验到乐趣。多年来，由于缺少游客预约入园系统，再加上国家公园管理局有着提倡民主和探索精神之风，任何人几乎在任何时候都可以造访国家公园。（管理局一直都规定，游客需获得许可才能在更偏远的地方徒步。）

　　But lately, both visitors and nature are suffering. Mr. Burns, who is on a team that is considering a reservation system, said some people showed up for a vacation they had planned for months, spent a day in the gridlock and turned around. Rangers, stressed by the frustrated masses, have started a monthly meeting to discuss “visitor use” that some say has turned into a group-therapy session.

　　但近来，游客和大自然都在遭受折磨。伯恩斯所在的团队正考虑推出预约系统，他说有些来度假的人已经为假期做了好几个月的计划，结果却被困在人山人海之中，只待了一天就打道回府。面对令人沮丧的混乱局面，公园管理员开始每月开一次例会，讨论“游客使用度”问题——按照一些人的说法，这一例会已经变成了群体治疗会。

　　And Zion’s delicate desert ecosystem has been battered by tourists, some of whom wash diapers in the Virgin River, scratch their names into boulders and fly drone cameras through once quiet skies. The park has about 25 miles of developed trails. But over time, rangers have mapped about 600 miles of visitor-made paths, which damage vegetation and soil and take a toll on wildlife.

　　此外，游客重创了锡安国家公园脆弱的荒漠生态系统，有的人在维琴河里洗尿布，有的人把自己的名字刻在大石头上，还有的人让无人机摄像头穿梭于一度静寂的天空。该公园的已开发步道总长度约为25英里（40公里）。但随着时间的推移，公园管理员在地图上标出了总长度约为600英里（960公里）的游客自行开辟的道路，它们破坏了植被和土壤，对野生动物也造成了伤害。

　　The story is similar at parks from Yosemite in California to Acadia in Maine. And the crowding problem comes as the system faces the dual threat of a funding shortage and climate change.

　　从加利福尼亚州的优胜美地(Yosemite)，到缅因州的阿卡迪亚(Acadia)，很多国家公园都在上演类似的故事。而且客流量过大的问题出现之际，国家公园系统正面临资金不足和气候变化的双重威胁。

　　The park system has a maintenance backlog of more than $11 billion and President Trump has proposed a 13 percent cut to the service.

　　该系统的维护经费缺口超过110亿美元，而特朗普总统已提议削减国家公园管理局13%的经费。

　　At the same time, park officials have identified the heat and floods of climate change as one of the system’s greatest perils. In Zion, as maximum temperatures in the summer have risen, the heat-intolerant American pika, a tiny mammal related to rabbits, has disappeared. Rangers call it a sign of what is likely to come: smaller streams, more frequent droughts and other shifts in the ecosystem.

　　与此同时，国家公园的管理者已经确认，气候变化带来的高温和洪水是该系统面临的最大风险之一。在锡安，随着夏季最高温度的上升，不耐热的美国鼠兔——一种小小的兔形目哺乳动物——已经消失了。公园管理员说这表明了接下来可能发生什么：溪流变细，干旱到来得更频繁，生态系统出现其他变化。

　　This summer, administrators at Zion submitted three proposed visitor plans to the public.

　　这个夏天，锡安的管理者向公众提交了三个拟议中的游客管理方案。

　　One option would require people to make an online reservation before arrival, and would set a yet-to-be-specified limit on visitors. The second option would require reservations only for certain areas. The third option would be to make no changes.

　　一个选项是要求游客在造访之前进行在线预约，并针对游客设定有待具体化的限制；第二个选项是只要求造访特定区域的游客进行预约；第三个选项是不做任何改变。

　　About 1,600 people sent in comments, and the park plans to send out a revised round of proposals for public review. Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh will make the final decision.

　　约1600人发表了自己的意见，锡安国家公园打算对上述方案进行修订，并交由公众审核。最后的决定将由公园负责人杰夫·布拉迪博(Jeff Bradybaugh)做出。

　　Some have expressed opposition to the reservation idea, including a group that founded the website stopzionreservations.org.

　　一些人表态反对预约，其中一个组织还建立了stopzionreservations.org（阻止锡安预约）的网站。

　　Mr. Burns said he favored a reservation policy. He recalled the days when he would jump in a car and pull up to parks across the West with no plans.

　　伯恩斯说，他支持预约政策。他还记得自己临时起意跳上汽车，随心所欲地在西部的一个个国家公园停留的日子。

　　When he first came to the park in the 1980s, he was a young employee at the lodge, and he wrote a letter home. “I’m living in no-man’s-land,” he told his parents. He could hike for hours, even days, without seeing a soul, and he remembered a constant sensitivity to the changing light on the canyons, the brilliant green of the trees, the emerald water of the Virgin River.

　　在1980年代首次来到锡安的时候，他成了住宿区的一名年轻雇员，给家里写过一封信。“我住在无人区，”他告诉父母。他可以一口气徒步几小时，甚至几天，连个人影都看不到；他记得自己总是能感受到峡谷中光线的变化、树木盎然的绿意、维琴河翡翠般的河水。

　　Today, he said, when he finds solitude, it is usually accompanied by the distant rumble of the shuttle bus.

　　现在，他说，当他想要偷得片刻清净的时候，总是躲不开远处班车的轰鸣声。

　　“There is only one Zion National Park,” he said to those struggling to see a need for limiting access. “And it’s sacred. Its beauty is sacred.”

　　“锡安国家公园只有一个，”他对那些认为没必要限制客流量的人说。“它是神圣的。它的美是神圣的。”

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