Now the hard work begins. Congress needs to be cajoled to pass the president's Centennial Initiative, new-found friends need to cash-in, and the national park system needs some loving attention if the National Park Service's centennial nine years hence is to truly be noteworthy.
Two-and-a-half days of meetings in Austin, Texas, at the National Park Foundation's Leadership Summit on Partnership and Philanthropy were energizing and hope-inspiring. They produced excitement about the centennial, spawned thought-provoking panel discussions on how partnerships and philanthropy could provide a much-needed boost for the perpetually cash-strapped Park Service, and held out hope that, with some decidedly concerted efforts, the national parks won't begin to decay once the Baby Boom generation that loves them so dearly fades away.
First Lady Laura Bush spoke at the gathering, as did two cabinet secretaries -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Jr. -- Park Service Director Mary Bomar, captains of industry, and purse holders of foundations intrigued, if not yet entirely persuaded, about the prospect of giving to the parks.
"There's nothing like being awed by the grandeur of Denali, overwhelmed by the vastness of Crater Lake, or humbled by the centuries of human history in the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. We want everyone to have the opportunity to make memories in our national parks, especially our children," the First Lady said Monday during her keynote address. "Improvements to our national parks and historical sites benefit every state. ... I urge Congress to support, and that means fund, this very important (Centennial Initiative.)"
First Lady Laura Bush addresses Leadership Summit (1:26)
Get the Flash Player to hear this audio.
Of course, the Centennial Initiative alone won't provide all the salve the national parks need. Most of the eligible products announced so far don't address long-standing problems. Most, if not all, parks are short-staffed; at Acadia National Park, for instance, one fifth of the 100 authorized full-time jobs are vacant due to funding woes. At other parks, positions of retiring personnel have been left vacant so the money for their salaries can be spent on operational costs. And, of course, there's the well-known $8 billion backlog in maintenance needs across the 391-unit park system.
Beyond that, questions hang over how partnerships and philanthropy will be married to benefit the parks. Where do you draw the line between helping the Park Service and replacing it with volunteers and concessionaires, and how do you engage common Americans to donate to the Centennial Initiative are just two.
Seemingly silencing that second concern is the fact that the American public is a very generous lot. One of the summit's speakers pointed out that $295 billion was donated to charitable causes in 2006 -- $222.9 billion from individuals. For fiscal 2007, that sum was projected to rise to $3.7 trillion. The trick for those supporting the Centennial Initiative is to corral just a fraction of those dollars for the parks.
Secretary Kempthorne told the conferees that he hopes the Centennial Initiative ignites a new era of philanthropy in the parks. At the same time, he and others stressed that philanthropic interests will not give to the parks if their dollars are used to replace, rather than supplement, federal funding. Too, they maintained that no corporation wants to advertise its presence in the parks, and that there are Park Service regulations in place to prevent that from happening anyway.
Mr. Kempthorne said the initiative, if passed, would provide funding to preserve lost Civil War battlefields, better protect cultural resources, and even create a fund dedicated to park land purchases, largely to close "holes" in parks created by inholdings.
"It's within our grasp to achieve excellence at all our national parks in America," he said.
Not everyone was convinced. Some of the smaller friends groups told me they worry they don't have the cachet to entice philanthropic funds to help pay for their needs. In response to that, however, was mention that if Congress approves the president's preferred funding proposal -- that private dollars be matched by federal dollars -- then whenever a dollar of federal funding is matched and released half be directed towards the project in question and half go into a discretionary fund for other parks' projects.
Beyond raising dollars for the parks, there must be successful efforts to entice the younger generations -- the Gen-Ys and their younger siblings -- into the parks.
"Our children have been seduced by the dark side of video games," Park Service Director Mary Bomar said at one point. "Is there anyone surprised that more Americans know Homer Simpson's home town than Abraham Lincoln's? Yes, Springfield (Ill.).
"... We are locked in battle to make sure that we get the hearts and minds of Americans back, to re-engage the American public with their national parks."
NPS Director Mary Bomar addresses Leadership Summit (1:45)
Get the Flash Player to hear this audio.
As the centennial draws near, much work needs to be done. Strategies for raising public awareness of the centennial as well as for generating contributions will be necessary. Park friends groups will have to court philanthropies and convince them they have worthwhile projects. Urban, cultural, and historical parks must benefit as much as the Western landscape parks.
And then, of course, there's the issue of climate change. But that's fodder for another post.
Comments
I think it's wholly appropriate for the director of the National Park Service to be concerned about the youth of America in regard to the national parks. Frankly, I think all of us should be concerned about the younger generations and their tight focus on everything electronic and cartoons of mockery and disrespect.
I could understand castigating someone for endorsing such behavior, but why criticize a public official for their concern over younger generations growing more and more detached from the natural world around them? What's wrong with someone in Washington taking a stance on the importance of getting the younger generations away from their electronics and into nature, if only for a while?
After all, where there are no park advocates, there is no park system.
Damn Kurt, your so right! I see kids in the inner cities just starving for someone to thrown them into the woods. I mean that literally! I advocate more leadership academies for such a purpose. However, in the long run I don't endorse any of Bush's environmental, economic or war policies.
I think you're reading too much into Director Bomar's rhetoric. Remember whom she was addressing. I didn't interpret her as saying the NPS needs to add one more duty to its roster, but rather that we as a society have to recognize a responsibility to, if you will, lead the youth of America into the woods and show them the wonderment that resides there.
Will "visitors surely come" if the NPS simply maintains the integrity of the park system? I wouldn't be so sure. Someone needs to tell the world what that system holds. In these days, maintaining a park is no guarantee that someone will come to visit.
Beamis: your quote, "but Iv'e seen plenty of kids enjoying the national parks". What kids!? Privileged rich kids who have access to the parks. Most inner city folks are too busy working two or three jobs to maintain a family, and with less time to shuttle their kids to the National Parks. Maybe a helping hand from the NPS could give more insight on this topic...at least take a big step towards this direction. The National Parks are meant to educate and not to be stifled by such comments like yours.
I am going to agree with Beamis on one point. It is the Director's main job to defend and protect the parks and programs of the National Park Service. She needs to make sure that parks have sufficient resources to 1. preserve and protect resources; 2. provide high quality visitor services; and 3. maintain productive relationships with park interest groups. She also needs to assure that the Park Service's rsponsiblities for recreation and historic preservation outside the boundaries of the parks are effectively carried out.
That said, I don't think she should be constrained from publicly commenting on issues that she believes may potentially affect these parks and programs. I consider her language about "struggling for the hearts and minds of people seduced by the dark side of video games" to be over-the-top. But I too wonder about what the future holds for the National Park System, not so much in terms of fluctuating visitor counts, but in terms of the political support for preserving and protecting the parks. During my years with the NPS, its most fanatical supporters were those who visited the sites and experienced what they had to offer. If we don't connect with people who vote or will vote, we will risk losing that support that has always been so important.
So, let's cut the Director some slack. Maybe her speech writer had an off day,. I'm a lot more worried about her decision to support snowmobiles in Yellowstone than I am about her speech in Austin. After all, who will remember it 5 months from now? I guarantee you we will be hearing snowmobiles in Yellowstone and the Tetons for longer than that. And that's really from the dark side.
Rick Smith
National park visitation yo-yos up and down for hard-to-pin-down reasons. Just a year ago there were some in Congress so worried over declining visitation that they held hearings into the trends. Of course, those making the most noise were those who make a buck off the parks -- concessionaires, gateway towns, etc.
This year trends seem to be reversing, as we're hearing about increases in places like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Olympic and elsewhere. Still, in recent years there's been a general concern about national park visitation. For instance, in 2003, a report on forecasting visitation to national parks noted that, "Since 1987, NPS visitation has been flat or decreasing."
That said, I'm not terribly worried about the current state of visitation. I love it when I can go to Arches or Canyonlands and have the place to myself. Or when I can head into Yellowstone's backcountry and not see another party.
The problem, though, is that I'm smack dab in the middle of the Baby Boom generation, which many believe is the generation best connected with nature and thus national parks. Here's a snippet I wrote in March 2006 when reviewing Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods:
And then there's Mr. Louv's own research. "This new, symbolic demarcation line suggests that Baby Boomers -- Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- may constitute the last generation of Americans to share an intimate, familial attachment to the land and water," he writes (on page 19 if you want to look it up).
As urban areas continue to spread, as iPods and iPhones and Wiis continue to dominate the minds of youth, where will the next generation of guardians for nature come from?
At the Leadership Summit I just returned from, the conference was concluded with a panel discussion involving University of Texas students. Sadly, many of those kids don't fully appreciate or understand the national park system. To lure college-age students to the parks they suggested staging concerts in the parks and that there be days when entrance fees to the parks are waived (Gee, isn't that already done?). They also suggested creating iPod tours of the parks (Gee, isn't THAT already being done?).
My concern, Beamis, is not with current visitation trends. My concern is who will be advocates for the parks when my generation is gone? And frankly, I think it's a very valid question, one that is quite legitimate for a director of the National Park Service to ask.
Please, Ms. Bomar, tell me you're not serious in your assertion that Lincoln's home town was Springfield, IL! He was a lawyer there, and twice elected State Representative, and was finally elected to the office of President while residing in Springfield, but by no means was it his home town. Born in Kentucky and raised mostly in Indiana, Springfield and the surrounding communities were indeed his adult home, and where he rose to national prominence. But even though the State of Illinois is proudly nicknamed the Land of Lincoln (just check the license plates), calling Springfield his home town is a bit of a stretch.
Fascinating repore you two have going. Beamis and Kurt that is...
I've spent a good portion of the past 4 years in the parks of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, and New Mexico. The connotation of "privileged rich kids" is straining the truth a wee bit. I've been accompanied by church groups, college groups from various states on summer class excursions, interns at various levels, volunteers, and WAY many kids on summer vacations, both the younger set with the folks and groups of teenagers trying to get away from the parents. Few of these qualified as "spoiled rich kids", although in reality some were indeed cut from that cloth. A small sampling, but there were some. It was my impression, or rather my personal experience, that not only were the "younger generation" missing, but domestics in general were the minority of people with whom I had encounters on the trails far removed from the main parking areas. Maybe the domestic tourists are the ones who tend to hit-and-run, and since my stays are typically a bit protracted, I missed seeing them and their cameras clinging to the overlooks and jumping back in the RV. But it's my impression that if you want the newer generations to become involved in park appreciation, you would be best served concentrating on having their guardians initiate them to the park system, and forget about the reliance on the parks themselves to sponsor concert night, or whatever other bastardization of the landscape would be required to bribe new visitation. It would amount to a colossal waste of time, effort and money that is already sorely lacking. Technological perks, such as pod-casts, electro-rangers, GPS route finders, tour-by-car, and the like would only enable service to a clientele already in attendence, not serve as a "hey let's jump in the car a take the virtual Mesa Verde Tour!" type of incentive to expand or generate interest among the "next generation". At least that's how I see it playing out..............
MS BOMAR! I don't think that ILLINOIS was ever revealed to be home to the Simpson's Springfield. How you could you make such a stunning error? :P
I still am stunned that people (on this site and in general) have such overwhelming faith in the free market, which in all essence doesn't really exist (protectionism, tax breaks, etc.) and even if it did would still not protect natural treasures like National Parks from plundering. While I have no question that it's absolutely the best system around, I'm sorry, it's not perfect.
Also, I agree with Kurt, someone has to reach out to the nation's youth. Even if you think the NPS should follow it's old, calcified strictures mandated far in the past, I disagree. If people don't value the parks, they aren't going to speak up for them and that backlog that everyone thinks the NPS should be concentrating on is only going to get larger. Frank and Beamis, while I always love your input and passion (really!), it seems like you're missing the point. This isn't about the sinecurists holding their jobs and getting promotions to jobs they aren't qualified for, getting unjustified raises and not being held to any performance standards, this is about the parks themselves... this is about the landscapes, not the agency in charge.