The park was established in 1988, but the National Park Service could not buy the land because of the local traditional communal land system. This was resolved in 1993 when the National Park Service entered into a 50-year lease for the park land from the Samoan village councils. In 2002, Congress approved a thirty percent expansion onto two islands, so now The National Park of American Samoa is really three parks on three separate islands -- Ta'u, Ofu, and Tutuila -- and is our sole park located in the Southern Hemisphere (near the International Date Line.)
The United States Government was unable to acquire the necessary park lands outright as has been done in most other United States national parks, because American Samoa retains many longstanding cultural traits relatively unchanged over time. Among them, Samoans retain their ways of communal ownership of land, an oral tradition of boundaries rather than written or surveyed boundaries, and a fierce protection of land and the status land provides a family.
The deeds of cession that the United States signed when making American Samoa a United States territory in 1900, and the American Samoan constitution, both provide the Samoan people a guarantee for this cultural tradition to continue. Thus it was impossible for the United States to acquire and own the lands for a national park. Instead, the law that established the park stipulated, "The Secretary of the Interior shall establish the park only when the Governor of American Samoa has entered into a lease of the lands and waters for a period of 50 years. All lease payments made by the United States under the lease may be disbursed only by the Governor, in amounts determined by the High Court of American Samoa, to those villages and families located within the boundaries of the park. The High Court of American Samoa shall have exclusive jurisdiction to determine the amount to be disbursed under this section to any person."
Samoa, the only U.S. territory south of the Equator, consists of 10 rugged, highly eroded volcanic islands (five inhabited) and two coral atolls (one inhabited). The land area of the territory is 76 square miles. The five volcanic islands are Tutuila, Aunu'u, Ofu, Olosega, and Ta'u, and the two remote atolls are Rose and Swains Islands. The park preserves and protects coral reefs, tropical rainforests, fruit bats, and the Samoan culture, which is Polynesia's oldest. It is believed that the first people on the Samoan Islands came by sea from southwest Asia some 3,000 years ago.
American Samoa's population is about 70,000, with most of the people on Tutuila. Except for perhaps a few thousand individuals, nearly all inhabitants of American Samoa are indigenous Samoans of Polynesian ancestry. More than any other U.S. or Polynesian people, Samoans are tradition-oriented and closely follow social customs and hierarchies from long before the arrival of the first Europeans. This Samoan way (called fa'asamoa) is still deeply ingrained in American Samoa culture. The most apparent characteristic is the Samoan matai system of organization and philosophy. In general each village is made up of a group of alga (extended families) which include as many relatives as can be claimed.
The United States' National Park System protects and preserves outstanding locations representing our country's finest natural, scenic, cultural, and scientific heritage. American Samoa National Park adds to the National Park System the finest examples of paleo-tropical rainforest, superb Pacific island scenery, and outstanding coral reef ecosystems .
The park is popular for hiking and snorkeling. Popular destinations include the Maugaloa Ridge, the Amalau Valley, Craggy Point, Tafeu Cove, and the islands of Pola and Manofa. Only part of the park is accessible by car and that section attracts the vast majority of visitors. The entire park has steep terrain and unstable volcanic soils due to its tropical rainfall climate and it is very hard to build and maintain trails in this environment. Though the park is new and has a very small staff, some short to moderate trails have been completed, including a trail to the top of Mount Alava (1610 feet) and its historic World War II gun emplacement sites at Breakers Point and Blunt's Point. The trail runs along the ridge in dense forest, north of which the land slopes steeply away to the ocean.
The coral fringing reefs of the park shelter the greatest marine biodiversity in the U.S. and its possessions. The 80-plus native fish and 200-plus coral species of the park are bewildering and awesome. Except for a few wide-ranging seabirds and marine fishes, most of Samoa’s biota is strikingly different from that of all other U.S. National Parks. The only native land mammals are three bat species. For a newcomer from the mainland, this national park will likely present a bewildering array of paleo-tropical plants, forest birds, reef fishes, and corals. 991 fish species representing 113 families are also found in or near the park, about twice the number occurring in Hawaii, but half the number in the Indo-Pacific region.
Drinking unfiltered and unpurified stream waters, or swimming in freshwater streams with open sores or cuts, may expose you to typical tropical maladies -- diarrhea, giardiasis, dysentery, hepatitis, and leptospirosis.
There are numerous archeological sites found within the national park boundaries. Below is an old grave site.
Although there is no official code, dress is very modest in American Samoa. Men and women should wear clothes that cover the shoulders and knees, and when swimming or snorkeling, you must cover your bathing suit with shirt and shorts.
Plant communities of the park, from the mountaintops down to the ocean, are largely tropical rainforest. It is an evergreen forest with the vegetation of the equatorial climate. Unlike the temperate forests of North America dominated by one or only a few tree species, tropical rainforests have high species diversity and the climax forest (a forest community that is stable and mature and no longer evolving) is dominated by many species. Samoa, as a geologically young ocean island, lacks any earlier land connection to continental land masses. Because its native species got here by chance, its species diversity is not as rich as Southeast Asia, the main source of the islands' plant dispersals.
During northern summers, three shorebirds -- plover, turnstone, and tattler -- nest in Alaska and northern Canada. After nesting, they fly non-stop over 3,000 miles of open ocean to Hawaii, and after briefly resting there, they continue another 2,500 miles to American Samoa. The round-trip journey each year is 11,000 miles!
There are two fruit bat species in American Samoa representing the only native mammals. They are important pollinators and seed distributors in the tropical rainforests. The animal life of the National Park of American Samoa is unique among the U.S. National Parks. Key animal forms, from the flying foxes or fruit bats in the mountains to the massive coral reefs along the shorelines, shape all natural ecosystems here. Flying foxes are important terrestrial pollinators and thus this rain forest is dominated by fruit-bearing species, in contrast to Hawaii where the native forests are pollinated largely by nectar seeking birds and insects.
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