History

Fundamental ideas were first articulated in the 19th century by people from various countries. In 1810 the English poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as a "sort of national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy".

The painter George Catlin, in his travels though the American West, wrote in 1832 that the Native Americans in the United States might be preserved:by some great protecting policy of government . . . in a magnificent park . . . A nation's park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!. Similar ideas were expressed in other countries – In Sweden, for instance, Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld made such a proposition in 1880 (from Wikipedia).

The first effort by any government to set aside such protective lands was in the United States, when President Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, ceding the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias (later becoming the Yosemite National Park) to the state of California:[T]he said State shall accept this grant upon the express conditions that the premises shall he held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time.

In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first truly national park. When news of the natural wonders of the Yellowstone were first published, the land was part of a territory. Unlike Yosemite, there was no state government that could assume stewardship of the land, so the Federal Government took on direct responsibility for the park, a procees formally completed in October 1, 1890.