What is the difference between national parks and national forests?
By law, national forests are working forests, set aside by congress in the late 1800s to provide the nation with a continual source of wood products. These national forests have a multiple-use mandate, which means they also provide wildlife habitat and are used for fishing, camping and other forms of recreation. By contrast, national parks were established to preserve natural features and areas of historical interest or exceptional beauty, and are not managed for timber or other resource production. Although many of our parks have paved roads and organized recreation areas, they are intended to approximate natural conditions. That means, for example, that when there s a fire on a national park, the forest is left to regrow naturally, no matter how devastating the fire is or how long it takes for the forest to regenerate.
