Self-Defeating Policies in National Parks

In “National Parks Hypocrisy” (editorial, May 1), the points raised are extraneous. The real threat to the parks is the National Park Service itself, an agency that has lost its direction over the years and has become development-oriented instead of preservation-oriented.

If it finds itself with some excess dollars in its pocket, as occurred in 1997, it turns toward the destructive widening of roads, cutting down forests for creating new parking lots and concentrating new development and facilities in areas that should be left as they are. If this situation continues, there will be very little in the parks worth preserving in coming years.

Lawrence S. Crane

Los Angeles