Protected Areas

 Teton Range and Jackson Lake from Signal Mountain, Grand Teton National Park in the 1880s (William Henry Jackson, US Geological Survey), and in 2010 (CW collection).

North Americans are passionate about the state of their parks and protected areas. Then and now photographs are one of the best techniques to evaluate how these landscapes are changing over time. Because these landscapes are baselines where land use is carefully controlled, then and now photographs combined with traditional knowledge, ecology, history, climatology and other studies can discover processes of ecosystem change that are not possible in more developed areas.