Project Profile: Restoration and Recreation Connectivity in Zion National Park

The Red Temple on the east side of Zion National Park

NPS Photo

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
Recreation | FY22 $100,000

Development of the east entrance of Zion National Park is being designed to be a welcoming experience for visitors and will feature a resilient landscape that protects, plants, animals, watersheds, and cultural resources amid a changing climate. This project enables the park to inventory sensitive vegetation and wildlife habitat, and study wildlife corridors, watershed conditions, and irreplaceable archeological sites. Information from the inventories will be used to plan construction of new facilities in ways that conserve scenic landscapes, important plants and animal habitat, critical watersheds, and community history.

Why? More than a million visitors each year arrive at the east entrance of Zion National Park, one of the last undeveloped national park gateways in America. This project will help provide the information needed to design conservation easements and trails that protect resources and provide for increased, and sustainable recreational use in a minimally developed area.

What Else? This project involves partnerships between the park and Federal, State, and local agencies, Tribes, non-profits, and private landowners. Partners for east Zion includes four state agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, private landowners, and the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians and the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – Ecosystem Restoration

This project was made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – Ecosystem Restoration, signed on November 15, 2021. It is a historic investment in the restoration and protection of the environment.