by Collette Ridgeway

About the author: Collette Ridgeway is the marketing assistant at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Everybody has heard of Yellowstone National Park and even Tongass National Forest, the former under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service and the latter under that of the Forest Service. But how many people have heard of the North Maine Woods, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, or the Eastern Pennsylvania Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, all of which are under nongovernmental control? Those and many other private parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and nature reserves are doing a much better job of preserving natural amenities than are the federal agencies.

Because of our shared interest in both environmentalism and liberty, my husband and I spent a year-long “working honeymoon” crisscrossing the country visiting...