Last month, interior department secretary Ryan Zinke wrote in an op-ed that the U.S.’s national parks are being loved to death . He specifically lamented the National Park System’s $ 12 billion backlog in deferred maintenance. But another symptom of the overwhelming power of tourists is ecosystems that need to be rehabilitated. Last week, Yosemite National Park unveiled its biggest conservation project to date, and it aimed to protect some of the park’s biggest and oldest inhabitants. Just inside Yosemite National Park’s south gate is the park’s newest bus depot. You park your car in a new 300-space parking lot, walk past the new wood-frame welcome center, and hop on one of the hybrid buses that circulate every 10 minutes. Ride just two miles, and you emerge in another world. It’s not a new world—in fact, it’s one of the most historic parts of the park—but it’s recently gotten a makeover. “It’s quite a transformation,” says Sue Beatty, a restoration ecologist with the National Park
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