AMERICAN COVENANT

Narrator Danny Campbell delivers this eloquent appreciation of our national parks in his somewhat hoarse-sounding and sometimes wavering voice. Once the listener is accustomed to his timbre, this audiobook delivers an informed celebration of the National Parks System (NPS) but also offers a critique of its management. The authors say the system has focused more on visitor services and fiscal management rather than the science of running the parks. The Park Service stewards more than 420 sites, covering 80 million acres, with a staff of just 22,000. The authors--conservationists and veterans of the NPS who wrote the text during the distinctly anti-science Trump administration--believe the Service should stand alone, add parks, and be repositories of data. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2021]