Yellowstone’s Carbon Impact Revealed: New Research Uncovers Tourism’s Environmental Footprint

The natural ecosystems of trees, grasses, and shrubs play a crucial role in capturing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it underground to help mitigate the effects of climate change. Strangely enough, these protected areas are also popular destinations for tourists due to their picturesque landscapes.

The Department of Environment and Society conducted a case study on the carbon emissions generated by visitors to Yellowstone National Park. They utilized existing data to calculate the amount of surplus carbon that is contributed to the atmosphere annually as a direct result of tourist visits to the park. The researchers, including Emily Wilkins and Jordan Smith, found that the park’s recreational visits result in over one megaton of carbon emissions per year, with an average of 479 kilograms attributable to each visitor. Yellowstone National Park is a popular destination, attracting over 4 million visitors annually.to each visitor (about the weight of a grand piano).

Most of these emissions happen before a visitor even sees a geyser or a wandering wolf pack. Traveling to and from the park entrance makes up almost 90% of the total emissions. Another 5% is produced as visitors move around within the park, and 4% comes from overnight accommodations. Only 1% of the total emissions comes from park operations like visitor centers, museums, shops, and restaurants.

Just over one-third of visits to Yellowstone involve someone taking a flight, but those trips make up 72% of the total emissions.The emissions for out-of-park transit. “As the tourism industry explores strategies to reduce their carbon impact, this could be low-hanging fruit,” said Wilkins, who now works with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Future campaigns to encourage a greater proportion of visitors from nearby locations rather than Europe or Asia, or encouraging driving over flying, have potential for big impacts on reducing these emission numbers.” But it seems that carbon accounting for Yellowstone National Park is still in the black. “Interestingly, ecosystems within the park boundary pull around 1.5 megatons o”Tourism is a significant contributor to the world’s total carbon emissions,” Smith added. “However, our research shows that large national parks can actually remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they produce each year, making them a net carbon sink even when accounting for the impact of tourism.”

According to Smith, this may not be the case for smaller parks with high visitor numbers. The new method for calculating the carbon impact of tourism for national parks can be used to assess potential emission reduction strategies and can be adapted for application to other parks and protected areas, he explained.Tourism accounts for 8 percent of yearly global carbon emissions, with the United States having the highest total tourism carbon footprint in the world. This number is projected to increase. The researchers emphasize that their study was not a complete policy analysis. They note that ecotourism has additional costs and benefits that were not taken into account. For instance, while tourism does contribute to global carbon emissions, positive experiences and education at parks like Yellowstone could potentially lead to indirect environmental benefits by encouraging pro-environmental behaviors.

At home, tourists often continue their unsustainable behaviors.

According to Wilkins, there is a need for more research on the impact of tourism on climate change and the impact of climate change on tourism. These are important topics that have significant economic and environmental consequences. Managers and decision makers require a more comprehensive understanding of how tourism to parks is contributing to a fragile global climate system.