This faded sign of the Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park was removed after Frank Munger posted the picture in his Atootographmic City Underground Blog in 2010, noting it was a sad sign of NERP's inadequate budget.
The Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park (NERP) contains seven registered State Natural Areas and has been recognized as an International Biosphere Reserve by Unesco's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program. The size of the Oak Ridge Reservation's land resource has shrunken considerably since it's establishment in 1942. Only about 20,000 acres of the original 58,575 acres of the ORR remain in a relatively undisturbed state. Any further reduction in the size of the Reservation, even from the edges, could have serious consequences for the viability of many of these species that require large unfragmented tracts of forest land.