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Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'
- pfdietz 3y agoHave you ever seen the movie Cold Mountain? The story was set in the Appalachians, but the movie was filmed in the mountains of Romania. Beautiful.
- alistairSH 3y agoI don't think the Carpathians look much like Appalachia - I'll have to check the film out and see.
- jderick 3y agoMaybe they can create one without all the traffic.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoYellowstone is an animal watching experience... so watch all the humans in their animal-ing.
- bombcar 3y agoJust go to any other part of the park; though the other parts are not as "interesting". Visit the Zone of Death! Almost completely empty! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone)
- justrealist 3y agoI buy this for Yosemite but let's be real, if I'm going to Yellowstone I'm taking my toddlers to see the geysers, not on a 20 mile in-and-out hike up a mountain.
- bombcar 3y agoOf course - though there are other geysers available (most in Yellowstone, of course): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geysers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geysers Popular things are popular for reasons, after all. The best I've found is visit at inconvenient times; early or late in the season, or early in the day.
- wbl 3y agoWas just in Yosemite: the mountains look just as pretty with snow and you can snowshoe from Badger Pass.
- samatman 3y agoThe Zone of Death isn't quite a classic "HN tries to compile the law" topic, lawyers have tried to have the boundaries rewritten after all. But what would happen if/when a felony is committed in the Zone of Death is fairly clear. A local judge would rule that "State and district" needs to be interpreted in the intention of the legislature, and can only be "State or district" when those differ, since "neither State nor district" isn't going to lead to a "fair and speedy trial". But this opens a wedge for appeal on procedural grounds, which any defense lawyer would be duty-bound to take, and the whole thing would end up in front of the Supreme Court. Which is a waste of everyone's time, SCOTUS should be creating meaningful precedent with its limited time, not futzing around with the one spot on the map where the Sixth Amendment is ambiguous. What wouldn't happen is the perpetrator going scot-free. That's not how it works. It's a cool name though. Very in keeping with the West in general.
- hollywood_court 3y agoThis reminds of “Free Fire” by C.J. Box.
- bombcar 3y agoOne of the novels written to try to get Congress to fix the technical issue.
- bombcar 3y agoThe only case that gets close to it was resolved (in part) by the perpetrator taking a plea deal that included the guarantee that they would NOT petition for redress.
- hnbad 3y agoGiven how the US legal system works in practice, a plea deal is also the most likely outcome for any other felony. Playing for time isn't really a good idea when that translates to extremely long jail times while waiting for a trial you're not going to win anyway.
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- burkaman 3y agoI haven't been to Yellowstone so maybe this doesn't make sense, but is there a reason they couldn't implement the same system as Zion? During most of the year the main road in Zion is closed to private cars, and everyone uses the (very good) shuttle system, or bikes or walks.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoZions shuttle system frankly blows. I went last week and had to wait 2 hours in line for it. Meanwhile you go to the kobol canyon area and I did not see a single person all day.
- thousandautumns 3y agoMust vary widely, because I went in August and there was 0 line at all. A lot of places are on Spring Break in the US right now, so that may contribute to your experience.
- sofixa 3y agoI did a trip through a bunch of national parks recently, and was thinking why the hell isn't there some sort of organised transit - be it shuttle busses, or trains for the capacity. The amount of space wasted for parking in a nature preserve was crazy, not to mention all the infrastructure for the traffic jams. Then went to Grand Canyon and Zion and saw they have shuttles which are sometimes exclusive (if the shuttle is operating you cannot take the road), which makes so much more sense, and even allows for more flexibility (you can go on a hike which is out, and not have to walk back the same way but hop on the shuttle bus).
- burkaman 3y agoI don't know why it isn't more common, especially when most parks have a relatively short main road/loop that 90% of visitors never leave. Yosemite for example has a great bus system that goes everywhere you need, except that they don't block private cars so the buses constantly get stuck in traffic. I think the exclusive shuttles at Zion are relatively new, so maybe it will spread to more parks in the future.
- malermeister 3y agoTransylvania is absolutely stunning. There's a trek called the Via Transilvanica that's on my bucket list: https://youtu.be/5gpbns_jqRY?si=TxGZXN6rCH2IQOoM https://youtu.be/5gpbns_jqRY?si=TxGZXN6rCH2IQOoM
- Ylpertnodi 3y agoAhh, bollocks (sort of)! Romania...one of the last cool places on earth that isn't full of idiots. Oh well, gotta go find somewhere else again. *packs of dogs can be a pain....especially whilst cycling.
- TulliusCicero 3y agoAre you...upset at nature preservation?
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoNo, US-American tourists
- TulliusCicero 3y agoAs a frequent reader of r/europe, Americans have FAR from the worst reputation for tourists within Europe, it's not even close. At least among larger countries, they might actually have a better than average rep.
- giantg2 3y agoI'd love to see the research behind that. I don't know where Americans rank, but I wouldn't guess we rank high.
- TulliusCicero 3y agoFrom what I've read: American tourists in Latin America fucking suck, but the ones that go to Europe or Japan are largely fine. Anyway, it's easy to find threads about tourists on r/europe or r/askeurope: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/6zq6lu/which_foreign_tourists_have_the_worst_reputation/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/6zq6lu/which_for...
- alistairSH 3y agoPersonal experience from travel in Iceland, Peru, UK (mostly Scotland), and Italy. Obviously generalizations and anecdotes, so take with a grain of salt. Americans often stand out. Look more "touristy" - wearing shorts, goofy bags, unstylish footwear, etc. Most likely to ask "what do you do?" (for a living). Not rude, but can be more boisterous/social than some others. Chinese - tend to travel in large tour groups. Frequently dressed poorly for conditions (Jimmy Choo shoes while touring Icelandic waterfalls). Disembark from buses and race to get a selfie before the rest of the crowd. Not purposefully rude, but the sheer number/concentration of them makes them stand out. Europeans are generally don't stand out. Usually dress the least obviously touristy. Usually happy to make chit-chat, but less likely to initiate than US-Americans. And stupid people come from all backgrounds. While in Iceland, there was an Asian fellow who insisted on sticking his hand into the geysers, despite warning signs in ~8 languages. Same trip, some German teens ran out onto an icy lake, despite signs warning of falling through the ice. And at the big waterfalls, there were people from all races/nationalities jumping fences to get better shots for their Insta feeds. My personal pet peeve is people who litter or otherwise ruin natural beauty. And again, they come in all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds, etc.
- tejohnso 3y ago[flagged]
- pgalvin 3y agoIn order to protect an area from capitalism (e.g. logging), you generally need to give the locals some financial incentive. Eco-tourism is widely credited with protecting mountain gorilla populations, for example, when perhaps in a perfect world we’d be able to just leave them alone.
- doikor 3y agoI guess it depends if land marked as a natural park is tax exempt or not (don't know about Romania legislation on this). If not then they need some revenue to cover the taxes. Not a lot of states are willing to put too much of their land outside of the economy (tax revenue).
- malermeister 3y agoBecause capitalism will get its greedy claws in there one way or another. It's either this or logging operations.
- bad_user 3y agoWhat do you understand by capitalism? Is it people delivering products and services, asking for whatever price the market is willing to give, such that they can make ends meet? I'm from Romania and I've always been fascinated by privileged westerners complaining of capitalism, when capitalism is the entire reason for why you're privileged. That, plus the hard fact that our communists didn't give a shit about preserving nature or brown bears. Actually, our former dictator was going bear hunting, one if his favorite pass times, and wasn't satisfied without a killing spree with dozens of bears as victims. There are videos of it available. And nobody could do shit about it, because we had no rule of law. For the rule of law, you actually need capitalism, but many of you haven't lived the collective trauma that we did, so that kind of lesson tends to be lost in time.
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- mistrial9 3y ago[flagged]
- warkdarrior 3y ago> The Clinton admin knows that this kind of headline appeals to their political support base. You're three decades too late!
- UncleEntity 3y agoChelsea hasn't run for president yet.
- xemra 3y agoWonder if they have considered albania. From what I have seen it has an amazing landscape and imo better t
- budududuroiu 3y agoVisiting Romania :) Living in Romania :(
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoI beg to differ
- ethbr1 3y agoWhat are the pros and cons?
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoPro: Amazing nature, you can do whatever you want, entrepreneurial spirit, great Gbit (!!!) WiFi everywhere, lovely people Con: Bad streets, derelict villages, corrupt politics, low trust
- budududuroiu 3y agoPros (imo): Daily essentials not-yet commodified, can access amazing produce for cheap. Geopolitically stable, crime is mostly petty or white collar. Nature. Cons (imo): no progressive tax rate, effective ~50% tax on income unless you want to do tax evasion (Romanian past-time), very likely to die on the road as public transit is in a state of disrepair, choice of healthcare between expensive and inefficient private sector, or a public sector where you have to bribe your way to not contracting infections while getting treated for something else.
- greenpresident 3y agoI randomly know some people who did research on the relationships between the stakeholders that are involved here. See: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08941920.2021.1955170 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08941920.2021.1... I find the whole thing facinating.
- UberFly 3y agoPrivate money is what kicked off the National Parks system in the US. Glad to see this happening anywhere. I hope it stays in the public trust though.
- bavent 3y agoReally? I thought it was Terry Roosevelt. Do you have a source?
- 1970-01-01 3y agoIt was Teddy. Via executive orders. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-theodore-roosevelts-executive-orders-reshaped-countryand-presidency-180962908/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-theodore-roosevel...
- bombcar 3y agoHe came way later - it began much earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Park_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Park_S... You have to look at the history of each individual park, some started out as government land and remained such, others were private resort islands, etc.
- 1970-01-01 3y agoI suppose it comes down to your definition of kicked off. There were only a few lands protected as national parks before Teddy arrived and protected more land than any other individual has ever done.
- jameshart 3y agoBut often with the support or lobbying of private interests. Generous souls like Lorrin A. Thurston of Hawaii, who would like you to remember him as the newspaper publishing philanthropist who used his wealth to promote his interest in volcanology and persuade Roosevelt to create the Volcanoes National Park. Which is true - in 1916, the park was established by Woodrow Wilson (helped by Teddy’s endorsement). But the same kind of private interest taking an interest in the affairs of state has its dark side too: Thurston also was the author of the “bayonet constitution” which undermined the Kingdom of Hawaii's sovereignty, and formed the ‘committee of safety’ which enlisted the US Marines in a coup that overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani, and installed Sanford Dole (the fruit guy) as and President, and ultimately brought about the annexation of Hawaii.
- jesprenj 3y ago> European Yellowstone That makes it sound like national parks were invented in the USA and there are no national parks in Europe ... So when a new store opens outside of the US it's called European Wallmart?
- azulster 3y agoyellowstone is literally called the first national park in the world so...yes?
- ethbr1 3y agoTo cite sources: >> On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed The Act of Dedication law that created Yellowstone National Park. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park#Hi... I believe the Yellowstone claim is based on the fact that it was the first park explicitly declared for the benefit of the public by a federal government.
- bombcar 3y agoThere are national park-like things that existed before, but they were often technically owned by the King or somesuch.
- jffry 3y agoIt's a direct quote from somebody who donated to the project, found in the first paragraph of the article: > The aim is to create “the European Yellowstone,” as the largest donor of the initiative described it
- colechristensen 3y agoNational parks were invented by the USA and Yellowstone was the first one in 1872. It is also very large.
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
- keiferski 3y agoOf particular note is that there are a ton of bears in Romania, much more than in other European countries, with something like 60% of all European brown bears. [0] Glad to see that someone is attempting to preserve this. 0. https://www.mossy.earth/rewilding-knowledge/romanias-brown-bears https://www.mossy.earth/rewilding-knowledge/romanias-brown-b...
- nottorp 3y agoThere are more bears than the land can sustain. Go to any tourist (or non tourist) spot in the mountains and they'll come down and steal from your garbage in town. Look up Brasov. It's a reasonably large touristic town and it regularly gets bears at the periphery.
- larrik 3y agoI live in a regular town in Connecticut and I have bears attack my garbage regularly, so I'm not convinced that's all that weird.
- miahi 3y agoUnfortunately, Romanian bears are brown bears (Ursus arctos), not black (Ursus americanus). They are not easily scared by people and encounters with them can be very dangerous.
- bwanab 3y agoI understand the difference, but if you find yourself inadvertently getting between a black bear and her cubs, I think you'll find they can be very dangerous, also.
- rsdfdfdfdf 3y agoI don't think there's a much difference in behavior between the species, probably Romania just has more bears living close to humans, which makes them less afraid and conflicts more likely. For the record, my home country (Finland) has about 2000 brown bears, and they have killed only a single person during past 100 years. Most of the time they try their best to avoid humans, and the majority of people living in the countryside have never even seen one.
- Fricken 3y ago>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-population-in-the-southern-carpathians-continues-to-thrive/#:~:text=Remarkable%20return-,Between%202014%20and%202021%2C%20Rewilding%20Europe%20and%20WWF%20Romania%20translocated,rewilding%20programme%20is%20also%20evolving https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati....
- ReleaseCandidat 3y agoYes, there are some of them in various european countries. https://www.eurowildlife.org/news/wisents-in-slovakia-the-population-has-increased-three-times-since-2004/ https://www.eurowildlife.org/news/wisents-in-slovakia-the-po... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bison https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bison
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- auselen 3y agoI’ve read about them after getting introduced to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Żubrówka https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Żubrówka
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoThe more the better, but there's already a "European Yellowstone" in the form of Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park in Belarus, of similar size, home to many of the remaining European buffalo.
- aix1 3y agoI'm guessing you mean the bison. (At least that's what Belovezhskaya Pushcha is known for, other than being the largest area of primeval forest in Europe.)
- hnbad 3y agoCorrect. Buffalo and wisent are both bison.
- joshuaissac 3y ago> Buffalo and wisent are both bison. There are also buffalo that are not bison, like the domestic water buffalo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo
- Shatnerz 3y agoBuffalo and Bison are often interchangeable in American English. I know in Polish, "żubr", which is the European Bison, is often translated as buffalo and the American Bison is known as "bizon" which is understandably translated as bison. I would not be surprised if Belarusian was similar.
- aix1 3y agoIn Belarusian it's indeed "амерыканскі бізон" and "еўрапейскі зубр" (American bison and European zubr). In everyday speech these are shortened to "bison" and "zubr". And buffalo (like African and water) is "буйвал". I had no idea American English used "buffalo" and "bison" interchangeably. Learn something every day. :)
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- maelito 3y agoPlease do this in France too. So much land, but agriculture everywhere.
- WalterBright 3y agoPeople like to eat.
- r00fus 3y agoFrance is a major food exporter. Some of those lands could be re-acquired by the state for non-food uses. Our capitalist world economy equates wealth based on extraction, not preservation. It really needs to be reimagined if we're going to be sustainable at all.
- tmnvdb 3y agoThat exported food is also feeding people.
- WalterBright 3y ago> Our capitalist world economy equates wealth based on extraction, not preservation Why is there no shortage of corn, cows, pigs, and chickens, then?
- yosito 3y agoReminds me of a fast food slogan, "Ya gotta eat! Rally's!"... not exactly the most appetizing slogan.
- maelito 3y agoWay too much, as shows the spreading obesity epidemic.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- klyrs 3y agoLet them eat cake!
- rsynnott 3y agoOh, as in a big park. Not a supervolcano. Fine, then, carry on.
- junaru 3y agoCall me pessimist but (emphasis mine): > We can only buy from private property, but not from municipalities or landowners’ associations, so our strategy is to acquire what we can and donate it to the state *only if it creates a national park* So foreign "donors" are buying land that they gonna keep if local government doesn't do what they want.
- jameshart 3y agoThere’s a bit of a trend of foreign meddling trying to preserve Carpathian landscapes - King Charles III of Great Britain has been at it too: https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-king-charles-trees-transylvania/32448181.html https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-king-charles-trees-transylva... Powerful aristocrats and mysterious patrons buying up parts of Transylvania to ensure the preservation of the old ways? Sounds like the background to a Dan Brown novel…
- orthoxerox 3y agoI am disappointed they didn't plan to drill for geysers. Geothermal activity is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "Yellowstone".
- fred_is_fred 3y agoI was also confused when I read this. Yellowstone has bears and buffalo, but that's not why it was made a park.
- paul7986 3y agoI have only been to Iceland (jan 2023..first time out of the US and loved it's culture & many things about it) then in May 2023 visited Yellowstone. Iceland has a lot of natural wonders but Yellowstone has more varied natural wonders and all in a smaller area. I'd personally recommend Yellowstone over Iceland if your looking to experience the best/most unique natural wonders (grand canyon, tons of waterfalls, a massive geyser Old Faithful compared to Stokkur, wildlife safari, hot and colorful out of this world scolding hot pools and more). I do need to do the ring road in Iceland, but Iceland surely does not have wildlife nor colorful hot pools (that i know of anyway).
- ReflectedImage 3y agoHow do they intend to install the super volcano underneath?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- BuffaloBagel 3y agoThe Gorongosa project in Mozambique has revitalized Gorongosa National Park while involving local communities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorongosa_National_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorongosa_National_Park
- anon291 3y agoSay what you like about America but our public lands are worth more than all the crown jewels of Europe.
- hasoleju 3y agoThis really sounds too good to be true. I understand why the locals are sceptic at first. If they achieve their goal of creating a national park with 200.000 square hectares they have covered 3% of the Romanian forests. That is impressive.
- sidewndr46 3y agoIsn't this mostly negated by the fact that Romania is a sovereign state? If a group was to buy up enough land that it started to affect the economy of the region, the government could just void out their rights to the land. Or reduce them to only a minimal level.