Homepage | News & Events | Sister Parks program links countries around the world
Through the Sister Parks program, national parks in the United States share a mission of environmental stewardship with similar parks around the world.
Participant countries enter a five-year agreement, overseen by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Affairs, with the United States allowing park rangers from both nations to share conservation tips and best practices for caring for important parks, sites and monuments.
Over three dozen Sister Park partnerships link parks in the United States with ones in 32 other countries.
Here are five of these Sister Park partnerships, united by a common goal of protecting the Earth and important cultural sites.
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This U.S. national park has the world’s longest cave system and an unusual history
Mammoth Cave National Park might be a top tourist destination in 2021, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
Kentucky’s dazzling caverns were nationally famous by the mid-19th century, occasionally attracting international visitors as well.
ByAustyn Gaffney
Email
Like many places, Mammoth Cave Kentucky’s only national park and the world’s longest cave system saw its visitation hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, more than half a million tourists descended on the 53,000-acre park, but that number fell by half in 2020 to just 290,000. Coronavirus precautions were partly responsible. The park limited its typical roster of almost 20 cave tours to a single self-guided tour, and provided timed tickets to groups of no more than 32 people. (As current federal mandates require, all visitors and employees are masked within federal buildings and the cave system.)
Beneath a portion of west-central Kentucky, in the United States, beneath the feet of visitors to Mammoth Cave National Park, is the park’s namesake, a vast warren of tunnels, caves, and caverns called the Mammoth Cave. With over 400 miles of known passageways and more being discovered, it is by far the longest cave system in the world, drawing in droves of visitors willing to take tours of its murky subterranean depths. Yet although it is certainly a geological wonder, the caves are also known for a spooky experiment once carried out here, which is at once a strange historical oddity and the source of tales of hauntings.