Administration's New Volunteer Program Helps Embattled National Parks

Washington, D.C. - “The Department of Interior’s new volunteer initiative announced today is a good opportunity to engage more Americans in ‘restoring our public lands.’ The National Park Service in particular has a long and growing record of effectively employing volunteers in accomplishing important protection and interpretation activities in the national parks,” said National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) President Thomas Kiernan. “Unfortunately, the work of these new volunteers will far from compensate for the many destructive policies of this administration, most of which are damaging the national parks they are entrusted to protect.”

NPCA’s not-so tongue-in-cheek list of six potential activities for new national park volunteers:

1. Telling visitors what they can’t see from Skyline Drive at Shenandoah National Park because of smoggy haze worsened by the administration’s rollback of air quality protections.
2. Offering gas masks to cross country skiers in Yellowstone because of the administration’s insistence on allowing the continued use of polluting snowmobiles in the park.
3. Rescuing the eggs of endangered sea turtles from the path of heavy drilling rigs on the beaches of Padre Island National Seashore, because the administration is stepping up leasing of oil and gas rights both inside national parks and next to them.
4. Studying archaeological artifacts and monitoring the health of wildlife in place of park staff, because the administration’s new privatization scheme seeks to put park stewardship in the hands of the lowest bidder.
5. Repairing damage created by highways and other development constructed in the national parks under the administration’s new interpretation of the archaic law, RS 2477.
6. Leading tours in the parking lot of the proposed development outside of Fort Necessity National Battlefield, because the Park Service has insufficient funding available for full-time staff and land acquisition.

NPCA’s new National Parks Watch List calls attention to decisions by the Bush administration and Congress that may harm the health, integrity, and future of America’s National Park System, and outlines potential solutions.