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This summer, millions of Americans will pack the family car for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to some of the nation's most spectacular and significant places: Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, Mesa Verde, or Gettysburg. All conjure images of grandeur and of our shared history.
But the experiences that some visitors will have this summer in our national parks may not live up to expectations. If a family is traveling to Olympic National Park in Washington or to the C&O Canal National Historical Park in Maryland, the visitor center may be closed because the parks don't have sufficient staff to keep them open. If a family makes a trip to Valley Forge National Historical Park to teach the children about the Revolutionary War, some of the buildings dating to Gen. George Washington's encampment will be locked. |
Endangered Rangers
At a Glance:
- National parks operate on average with only two-thirds of the needed funding -- a system-wide shortfall in excess of $600 million annually.
- The Park Service has approximately one interpreter per 100,000 park visitors.
- Parks across the country this summer are closing visitor centers and cutting ranger-led educational programs because of insufficient staffing and funding.
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The reason? Chronic under funding and increasing park responsibilities that do not come with additional funding, such as protecting the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, Independence Hall, and the Washington Monument from the possibility of terrorist attack. Decades of financial neglect have taken a toll on the 387 sites within the National Park System. As cited in this groundbreaking report, national parks operate on average with only two-thirds of the needed funding-a system-wide shortfall that translates to more than $600 million annually. Since permanent park staff are hired and paid from the Park Service's operating budget, this $600 million funding shortfall directly reduces the Park Service's ability to maintain the staff necessary to preserve the parks, and consequently compromises the agency's mission to preserve our parks "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
An issue raised by the Association of National Park Rangers more than ten years ago, limited staffing is crippling parks across the system. Science suffers at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, where the Park Service does not have the staff or money to monitor several endangered species. Priceless museum collections are piled up in offices at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana and boxed up and stored in a basement at Acadia National Park in Maine. School groups are turned away from various parks, including Yellowstone, and some parks are so understaffed that a lottery system decides which children will hear the stories of the parks-our nation's living classrooms.
Elsewhere, the problems are even more critical. American Indian artifacts are plundered from Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, black bears killed for profit at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and rare plants stolen from Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. Illegal drugs are trafficked through Coronado National Memorial in Arizona and cultivated at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks in California. Many of these problems are caused or exacerbated by a woeful shortage of staff. In some parks, hundreds of positions go unfilled.
Despite the limited resources available, the employees of the Park Service, from rangers to maintenance workers, continue to be personally committed to protecting our heritage-doing the best job possible. For many who work in America's national parks, it is more than a job-it is a calling. Vice President Dick Cheney recognized that value in 2001, when he noted, "People expect rangers to know just about everything, and they usually do. The typical park ranger works as a historian, resource manager, law enforcement officer, curator, teacher-and sometimes paramedic and rescuer."
Yet, despite the best efforts of dedicated park staff, the public can now feel and see the effects of under funding and insufficient staffing. There simply are not enough of them to meet the significant, evolving challenges facing our national parks. The Park Service is facing a critical shortage of field personnel-a shortage that has grown over the past few years and is likely to worsen. Like the well-publicized backlog of park maintenance projects, the "human resources backlog," as the Association of National Park Rangers calls it, is overwhelming.
Recommendations:
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) recommends several actions to immediately address dire staffing needs in the national parks. These include:
- Congress and the administration must increase annual funding by at least $600 million.
- Congress and the administration must provide homeland security funding to offset costs that have been incurred since 9/11/01.
- The National Park Service must make available the tools and training needed to maximize the effectiveness of park managers.
As former Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Michael Finley once said, "we must commit ourselves to correct the deficiencies and honor our obligation to future generations." The artifacts, places, and colorful stories of our shared history and culture depend upon it.
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