I love spring! You see more and more people getting outside enjoying our parks. I have a few things to help get you outdoors this week, including tips for your next trip to Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, an excuse to take the kids out, and a new perspective of some of the trails in Sequoia National Park.

1. Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park has a new FREE audio tour app! This app is a self-guided walking tour that is intended to educate visitors of the history, geology, and social and cultural importance of this park. Did you know the Great Falls pours roughly two billion gallons of water into the canyon each day?
2. What animal do you think you’ll cross paths with when hiking the trails of our national parks? Bison? Elk? Fox? Birds? Alligators? Everglades National Park offers a unique wildlife experience where this is just an everyday occurrence. Photo courtesy of Everglades National Park Facebook page.
   
   
3. Our national parks are starting to bloom. It is National Wildflower Week and beautiful images of our national parks’ flowers are popping up on Pinterest. Here is a beautiful image of Desert Tissue Spring Flowers found in Joshua Tree National Park, CA. What park is your favorite to watch bloom?
4. The granola gurus at Nature Valley have shown their commitment to our parks  over the last four years by funding exciting projects with their Preserve the Parks campaign (including numerous restoration work days around the country in partnership with NPCA). A really innovative extension of this campaign is “Nature Valley Trail View” where their staff have set out to create a 360-degree “street view” of some of our national park trails. The newest addition are trails from Sequoia National Park. Check it out!
5. May 18th is National Kids to Parks Day, organized by National Park Trust. More than 100,000 people have already pledged to take kids to a park. Make your pledge today! This campaign’s mascot is “Buddy Bison” and we love his quote: “Explore outdoors, the parks are yours!” So get outside and enjoy our national parks!

Find something fun about national parks on the ’net? Let me know!

-Megan Cantrell, Senior Coordinator of Member Engagement

This Saturday, April 20, marks the third anniversary of the oil rig explosion that devastated coastal communities, waters, and lands in the Gulf of Mexico and imposed tragic loss among 11 families.

Nearly three years ago, I flew over the Gulf of Mexico in a small plane, to see firsthand the devastating impacts the 2010 Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill was inflicting on our national parks and the local communities, especially Gulf Islands National Seashore. I met with many workers and toured the National Park Service’s Oil Spill Command Center to discuss clean-up efforts, staff capacity, and the challenges they faced trying to protect park resources and wildlife.

As I walked along the beach of Gulf Islands National Seashore, the wind and rain from Tropical Storm Bonnie was strong. The brown-stained sea foam rolled in and out, leaving behind a thin sheen of oil on the beach. Though officials advised against it, I reached down to pick up some of the brown sand and felt the oil between my fingertips. I was not prepared for the stinging sensation on my fingers—a slight and persistent chemical sting. It was heartbreaking to imagine the oil spreading over the Gulf Islands’ beaches, into its wetlands, and onto its wildlife. The work ahead for the National Park Service was daunting, especially for the more than 600 staff from 120 national parks deployed to assist in the Gulf Coast cleanup efforts, in addition to thousands of others from federal agencies, national and local organizations, and nearby communities.

Recognizing that one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the Gulf Coast in U.S. history could bring about an unprecedented opportunity for recovery and restoration, Congress passed the Resources and Ecosystem Sustainability, Tourism, Opportunities Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act (also referred to as the RESTORE Act) last year. This bipartisan legislation ensures that 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalty payments stemming from the BP oil spill would be directed toward environmental restoration and economic development in the Gulf region, including national parks like Gulf Islands National Seashore, Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, and Padre Island National Seashore, where the health of the Gulf is directly linked to the health of the parks.

Today, BP and other responsible parties are on trial in a federal court in Louisiana to determine the extent of their negligence and the financial penalties that will be leveed. In the meantime, there are many projects that could make a tremendous impact on the Gulf through the RESTORE Act.

The entire Gulf is one large ecosystem. Improving the health of places like Florida Bay, the Mississippi Delta, and Galveston Bay will support vibrant fisheries, wildlife habitat, and livelihoods that depend on a healthy Gulf. NPCA supports a variety of restoration projects with a goal of improving the overall health of the Gulf to allow it to be more resilient to future disasters.

At Gulf Islands National Seashore, one potential project would remove asphalt and road-base debris from areas that were once pristine sugar-white sand, but have been damaged by years of storm events. At Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve, a proposed project would restore wetlands damaged by old oil exploration and drilling canals, levees, and platforms in the Barrataria Preserve portion of the park. At Everglades National Park, another proposed project would bridge spans of a major access road known as the Tamiami Trail, allowing water to flow back into the park and out to Florida Bay, a highly productive Gulf estuary that has experienced a decline in fisheries and wading birds due to the lack of fresh water.

With five of America’s Great Waters and eight national parks located in the Gulf Coast region, we must not forget how these cherished places suffered, either by direct impacts from the oil or indirect effects such as lost revenues from spring and summer tourism seasons. These communities have been waiting for funds to begin critical shovel-ready environmental restoration projects that will rebuild the Gulf Coast, making it stronger and more resilient.

We must not forget how we felt when we heard the news three years ago and watched damage spread day after day. The communities, businesses and national parks in the Gulf Coast still need help to recover from it. The federal government must hold the responsible parties accountable and use the financial penalties to jumpstart these restoration projects that, once funded, will help to restore and rebuild the Gulf Coast to make it stronger than ever.

Today, March 22, we celebrate World Water Day. Officially sanctioned by the United Nations, this year’s theme is water cooperation, which recognizes the need to balance demands and priorities among multiple players involved in water management decisions.

Much of Everglades restoration is about water cooperation and finding appropriate management solutions to meet the many needs of those dependent on the ecosystem while restoring the historic “River of Grass.” 

In the spirit of water cooperation, many partners came together this week to celebrate the completion and ribbon cutting of a one-mile bridge on Tamiami Trail, a major Everglades restoration project and the largest construction project in the history of the National Park Service (NPS). NPCA staff and board members joined with Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Jo-Ellen Darcy, and Everglades National Park Superintendent Dan Kimball on an inaugural crossing of the bridge.

Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 41/State Road 90) connects Tampa to Miami and forms a portion of the northern boundary of Everglades National Park. It provides access to one of the most popular areas of the park–Shark Valley Slough. The road is also the only way to access the Big Cypress National Preserve Visitor Center and Headquarters.

Since the road was built in the 1920s, Tamiami Trail has acted as a dam, cutting off the natural north-south water flow through the greater Everglades ecosystem. As a result, Everglades National Park is starved of vital water, deteriorating habitat for wading birds and other wildlife and altering the park’s unique ridge-and-slough landscape.

In 1989, Congress recognized the need for immediate restorative action and authorized a law known as the “Modified Water Deliveries project,” which included bridging this one mile of Tamiami Trail.  Construction started 20 years after it was authorized. Finally, today, cars can drive over the bridge with water flowing underneath as they look south to the vast expanse of Everglades National Park.

We are thrilled that this first phase of bridging is finished and appreciate the many benefits it brings. This project is critical to restoring water flows and distribution that marine wildlife, fisheries, and nesting colonies of birds rely on, including the endangered Everglade Snail Kite and the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow. Additionally, bridging Tamiami Trail will increase the capacity to move more water from Lake Okeechobee through the central Everglades, thus reducing the devastating water flows that are killing coastal estuaries, fueling red tides, and wasting billions of gallons of freshwater. People have benefitted directly from the project, too. The bridge construction already has brought much needed jobs to South Florida—from 2010 to 2012 alone, 1,212 jobs were created.

While park wildlife will feel the real, positive impact of some of these benefits in the near future, the one-mile bridge alone will not achieve the water flows necessary to restore the Everglades and truly reconnect the divided parts of the ecosystem. We must move forward with the additional bridging of Tamiami Trail.

According to the National Research Council’s “Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Third Biennial Review,” additional bridging of Tamiami Trail is required to achieve significant ecological benefits. NPS recognizes this and has already recommended an additional 5.5 miles of bridging, which Congress authorized in 2012. The planning and design phase is underway right now at NPS’ Denver Service Center. The next critical step is securing funding for the project. 

Everglades was the first national park dedicated for its biological diversity as opposed to its scenic vistas. However, as each year passes, its biological integrity is increasingly jeopardized by altered water flows. Each year we are losing critical habitat and endangered species. 

Bridging Tamiami Trail is the highest priority project restoring an ecosystem in a national park. Now that the first mile is complete, we look to continuing this work with our partners, in the spirit of World Water Day’s theme of water cooperation, to build on this momentum and make a real difference for America’s Everglades. 

For more information, see our recent press statement on the Tamiami Trail bridging and learn more about NPCA’s Great Waters program.

Now, Audrey’s new book, Our True Nature, takes readers on a different kind of journey through a rich cross-section of the park system, with stories, photos, and enthusiasm for 57 of the country’s greatest places. We asked Audrey, a past recipient of NPCA’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award and four-term NPCA board member, to share some of her inspirations and insights with us.

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Q: Our True Nature feels very different from Legacy on the Land—more general in its subject matter, like a travel guide that anyone could pick up to learn more about the parks.

Audrey: That was actually my goal, to make this book issueless—a love letter to the parks.

Legacy on the Land was our journey of discovery. I literally fell into the national park system by accident, and then I couldn’t stay out! When I found that there was so much resistance and misunderstanding [about the relationship between people of color and the parks], Legacy echoed our challenges and frustrations. But with this book, I just decided to pour my heart out with love. People are so overwhelmed with issues. I really just wanted to use the power of love and beauty to inspire people.

Q: Of course, you explore themes of diversity, but not on every page. It really is a mix of different places throughout the country.

Audrey: That’s what the park system is all about! It’s got our collective history and all of the beauty and splendor of the natural world, and it tells the story of how we got here together.

Q: How did you narrow the book down to 57 parks? That must have been a difficult process.

Having the imprint of such monumental natural wonders on my spirit gives me perspective on how infinitesimal I am in the world, and yet how important. … My demeanor is always centered in the knowledge that there’s something so much bigger than myself. – Audrey Peterman
Audrey: It actually wasn’t. I didn’t focus as much on the ones that were in Legacy. For example, Mammoth Cave, which gets a lot of ink in Legacy, doesn’t appear in this book at all.

Q: But Badlands does.

Audrey: Badlands does, but it’s a new story. It’s a story about how the parks don’t just protect the natural resources that are terrestrial, but also the ones that are extraterrestrial! I didn’t even know there were parks protecting our dark skies. That made such an impact on me, seeing the Milky Way from horizon to horizon. We all live under the same sky, in such a small fraction of the universe.

Q: I know one of your goals is convincing new people to explore the parks. How do you do it?

Audrey: If you know my personality, it’s big on parks. If I’m in the supermarket or the gas station, the Grand Canyon and the Everglades are always working their way into my conversations. I talk to everybody, because that’s the kind of person I am.

It’s amazing to know that when people think about these places, they think about them as being far away. And I’m saying, are you kidding me? Wherever you are, there’s a park unit nearby. [Or people] might say that it’s going to be expensive, and I tell them that for eight dollars their whole car can get in, and some parks don’t even have an entrance fee. If they’re 62 or older they can get a park pass for ten dollars that’s good for the rest of their lives. That blows people’s minds!

It’s just providing information and leadership—and saying what the benefits are. They’re astronomical!

Q: What have some of those benefits been for you?

Audrey: When we were at Yellowstone, we were looking at a burned part of a mountain and Frank said, “Oh, that must have burned in the fire of ’88.” The white man standing next to us said, “Yes.” He pointed and said, “When my father brought me as a child, they were building over there. When I brought my son, they were building over there.” Now, he had retired and was back for his third time. I saw a shadow pass across Frank’s face. Later, when I asked him, he said, “I don’t live my life with any regrets, but as that man was talking, I realized that I had really shortchanged myself and my children because I had not taken them to see these places. He and his family know this country. They have a sense of ownership. We don’t.” So I said, “We’ll take our children and our grandchildren now.” To extrapolate from that, I’ve been trying to take the whole country!

My girlfriend came to visit and we decided to take a trip down to Everglades one Sunday. I’ve been to the Everglades five hundred million thousand times, and yet on this trip, there were places I’d never been before. At the end of the day, she said, you know, I want to put this park in my estate plan, and I want to volunteer here. That’s the kind of response that the parks evoke in people. You know how she described it? She said, “It feels like I’ve had a forest bath.” I thought that was such an unusual way of putting it. What she was saying is that she felt she had just been washed clean.

Q: I get a sense you have a real spiritual connection with nature.

Audrey: Having the imprint of such monumental natural wonders on my spirit gives me perspective on how infinitesimal I am in the world, and yet, how important. I am part of everything. Though a small part, I am connected to everything. It allows me to take a step back from whatever challenges I’m experiencing. My demeanor is always centered in the knowledge that there’s something so much bigger than myself.

Q: Do you think the parks have become more diverse since you started exploring them in 1995?

Traveling through the park system, I get a bigger picture of what America really is. It is so much more inclusive of all the races. Everybody has contributed to the greatness of this country. – Audrey Peterman
Audrey: Exponentially. In the early days, when I saw black people in the parks, I would run up to them and would have to find out all about them, because I was just so excited. But now, if I were to do that, I’d be running up to people all the time!

Now there are so many groups that have arisen around the country. Rue Mapp and Outdoor Afro are continuously introducing people to the parks in the California area. Dudley Edmondson, the noted wildlife photographer and birder wrote the first book about people of color in the park system and the environmental movement. The most exciting of all is Juan Martinez. Juan is a young Latino man who grew up in a rough part of L.A. He got in trouble in school and had a choice between failing a class or going to Eco Club; he chose the Eco Club. [Later,] he got a chance to go to Grand Teton National Park, where he saw the stars for the first time. The impact that it had on his life was so transformative that he has devoted himself to conservation and getting other young people in nature and the parks. And you know what he was named last year? National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

Q: That must feel really hopeful, looking forward to the next generation of leaders.

Audrey: Hopeful? It’s not hopeful. It’s affirmative! Give people the exposure and the opportunities, and we’re there.

Q: What about environmental institutions that have traditionally disregarded diverse voices? Do you think things are getting better?

Audrey: Well, there are individuals who care very passionately. [But] people live by certain prevailing myths. A myth has grown up in America around the enjoyment and protection of natural resources and our public land system. That myth says that people of color are not interested, not suitable—just not. It doesn’t matter how much you demonstrate that isn’t true. The power of the myth is so deep that it overrides facts and intelligence. That is the myth that is holding us up. It’s holding us back.

In this increasingly multicultural society, I keep hearing people who call themselves environmental leaders say, “We’ve tried so hard [to get people of color involved], and it’s just not happening.” Look at all the people across the country who are really, vigorously doing this work. But the myth overrides the reality.

So many business leaders serve on boards in the environmental sector, and I wonder, if they saw that the fastest-growing demographic group was not using their product or service, what would they do? Do you think they would sit around and say, “Well, we tried to reach them one time in 1978 for a couple of months and that didn’t work”?

What I am saying now to environmental organizations is this. By 2042, people of color will be 50 percent of the population. Even if every white person in the country was dedicating themselves full-time to the environment, if the other 50 percent doesn’t know or care, how are our issues going to survive?

Q: Do you think there’s a positive trend?

Audrey: My ambition is to see the day when all Americans love our national treasures the way I do. It makes us feel a little more loving of ourselves, a little more accepting of ourselves and others, to realize we are part of something so glorious. The park system did that for me, so I know it can do it for other people.

I really think a lot of the friction in the country comes from the fact everybody thinks that they know what America is [but they only see part of it]. Traveling through the park system, I get a bigger picture of what America really is. It is so much more inclusive of all the races. Everybody has contributed to the greatness of this country.

I’m ready for things to change. Seventeen years later, I do see signs of change, but I’m hearing some similar attitudes in places of leadership, which is very disconcerting.

I’m not trying to belittle anything that anyone else is doing or any organization is doing. NPCA is trying. The Nature Conservancy is trying. The Sierra Club is trying. The Park Service is trying. But I see the effort as very small compared to the effort that is needed.

If it’s imperative, you have to find ways to do it. If you haven’t made strides in capturing the loyalty of another 50 percent of the population, then how are you going to survive? Some things cannot wait. That’s what leadership means, right?

Learn more about Our True Nature on Audrey and Frank’s website, www.legacyontheland.com.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Everglades champions and advocates convened earlier this month in Coral Gables, Florida, for the 28^th annual Everglades Coalition Conference–an event that unites hundreds of people who are working to restore America’s Everglades. Looking back over recent years and at the opportunities that lie ahead, there is a lot to celebrate.

Under the leadership of NPCA’s Dawn Shirreffs, the Everglades Coalition organized a well-attended event with more than 300 participants, none of whom complained about traveling to sunny South Florida in January. State and federal officials were there to highlight the restoration efforts underway and outline the exciting opportunities ahead.

During the week leading up to the conference, two congressional Everglades champions, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL), joined together in a strong display of bipartisan support by reinstating the Everglades Congressional Caucus, a group of members of Congress who have a special interest in protecting and restoring the Everglades for its environmental and economic benefits. In recent years, something as vital as restoring America’s Everglades unfortunately fell into the pit of partisanship. However, with the announcement from Representatives Diaz-Balart and Hastings, the Everglades Caucus is back in business. And it is growing in members very quickly, with three of Florida’s newest members of Congress–Representatives Lois Frankel (D-FL), Patrick Murphy (D-FL), and Joe Garcia (D-FL)–committing to joining the caucus in their remarks to conference participants, who responded with much applause.   

NPCA hosted Friday night’s dinner where NPCA Vice President Theresa Pierno emceed the evening, which included speeches from Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Darden Restaurants CEO Clarence Otis, Jr. In his keynote address, Secretary Salazar highlighted the need to move forward on the additional 5.5 miles of bridging along Tamiami Trail as part of the National Parks Centennial in 2016.

Representatives Diaz-Balart and Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke at Saturday night’s dinner about their continued commitment to Everglades restoration. Both members noted the opportunities to find common ground and advance much-needed funding, even during a time when the budget is tight. This is particularly significant coming from two members from Florida who sit on the House Appropriations Committee. 

Participants emphasized several priorities repeatedly during the conference:

• Move forward with additional bridging on Tamiami Trail to restore water flow south to Everglades National Park.
• Encourage President Obama, Congress, Governor Scott, and the Florida General Assembly to commit the funding necessary for Everglades projects to advance.
• Encourage Congress to pass a Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) to authorize construction on five restoration projects to move forward. Currently all authorized projects are underway and progress will stall unless Congress acts.
• Leverage penalties from the BP Gulf oil spill for projects that restore the Southern Gulf of Mexico, which include certain Everglades projects.

During the conference, we celebrated the completion of a major restoration achievement: phase one of the C-111 spreader canal, a project that is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. The C-111 is one of the largest canals in South Florida; over time, its use has altered the water flow out of Everglades, draining fresh water from the park’s adjacent wetlands. The newly constructed spreader will prevent the water table from getting too low at the park by increasing the amount of fresh water entering through Taylor Slough. This move will revitalize Florida Bay where unusually high concentrations of salt water have threatened wildlife and habitat. To move forward with construction on phase two, Congress must pass WRDA to authorize the project. 

Fortunately, we will celebrate another major milestone next month. The federal government will complete construction on the one-mile bridge on Tamiami Trail–an essential step to restore critical water flow south to Everglades National Park. Stay tuned for more details on the additional work that lies ahead. 

Learn more about NPCA’s Great Waters program and our work to fund Everglades restoration.

Too often when we think of national parks, we think of distant places enjoyed by tourists—yet millions of people in cities across the country are just a bus ride or a quick car trip away from these inspirational places. Part of what I do is help connect people—especially kids and young adults—to the nature and history that is right there in their own community.

Florida City in South Florida is an excellent example. This city is just six miles from Everglades National Park, yet many of its residents have never been to the world-class park that is right in their backyard.

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and Nature Valley® partnered with Miami-Dade County and Florida City last month to help engage the next generation of park lovers in meaningful, hands-on experiences in nature. Our goal was to restore a piece of land known as the Florida City Pineland Preserve to its natural beauty. This 25-acre parcel was once part of the Everglades but had since become an island surrounded by development, suffering from dumping and neglect, and not easily accessible to the public.

So, on October 13, I drove down the Florida Turnpike while the sun was rising, eager to get to work. As I drove, I feared that the fickle weather would foil our plans. After a promising week of sunny 80-degree days, Mother Nature seemed to play a nasty trick and ominous dark clouds filled the sky. With a loud crack of thunder, a vicious downpour of rain lashed my windshield—the kind of rain that drives many South Floridians running for cover. However, my spirits soon lifted. Within an hour, the clouds had passed, and the day turned warm and sunny. As an added bonus, the rain made the soil more suitable for planting. Mother Nature was on our side after all.

Despite the early storm, more than 50 volunteers arrived to help. Most of our volunteers were high school students from the urban core of Miami. The students were beaming with enthusiasm and eager to plant trees, remove invasive species, collect pine needles to spread as mulch, and clean up trash. Not one of them complained about the heat and hard work; in fact, they worked so well together that we finished all of our planting and mulching early. They even asked for more work!

This was not our first time working with some of these volunteers. Last March, NPCA hosted a volunteer day to build a pathway with educational signs through the Pineland Preserve—a successful project that makes it easier for Florida City residents to enjoy and learn about the Everglades. Now, as the group arrived at the park, they could see the small native plants we had planted in the spring were starting to sprout gorgeous flowers. Neighbors could already see that these 25 acres were no longer just an unkempt plot of land, but a refuge and a pathway to the Everglades.

The restoration will benefit more than just people. South Florida’s torrential rains have traditionally fed pristine wetlands and hardwood hammocks, but many of these natural areas have been lost to construction over the past 20 years, as urban sprawl creeps closer to the Everglades. But pocket parks maintain pieces of what the natural environment used to look like, and the Pineland Preserve contains some of the few remnants of pine rockland habitat that once covered much of Miami-Dade County. Restoring this property to its original state will provide endangered species with critical habitat despite the urbanization taking place all around them.

One of the kids asked whether such a small parcel was worth restoring, since it seems like a disconnected island without much purpose. I answered—and spending the better part of a day in the Pineland helped to show—that, in fact, it isn’t an island at all, but rather an oasis teeming with wildlife.

One of the most rewarding parts of this project was getting to connect dozens of local students to the park and to help them to see the fruits of their labor. It was clear that these youth felt a sense of accomplishment and ownership after their hours of hard work. When we were done, students stood tall next to a sign that we posted, letting locals and tourists know that this property, once neglected and overgrown with weeds, has been restored as native habitat and is now a pathway park–open for all to come and experience a taste of the Everglades.

It seems fitting, then, that Wolf Trap has created a series of vibrant dance performances devoted especially to national parks. The seventh installment in this “Face of America” series will debut this Saturday, September 8, featuring the parks of South Florida: Biscayne National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Dry Tortugas National Park and Everglades National Park. The show will combine live dance with taped dance performances filmed in the parks; Miami-based timba band Tiempo Libre will perform as dancers highlight the natural landscapes, wildlife,  history, and culture of these iconic places.

Learn more on Wolf Trap’s website, and see a short sample of the show’s performances on the video clip below. And if you buy tickets, use promo code SPIRIT25 at check out to get a 25 percent discount especially for park lovers!

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Thanks to the talented Gainesville-based photographer Mac Stone for allowing NPCA to use several of his vibrant images of Florida Bay to help capture how special it is and inspire more people to help preserve it. Learn more about NPCA’s work protecting the bay on our website. 

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

If you liked this story, you might also like:

• Friday Photo: The Everglades, in Black and White (January 27, 2012)
• Focus on Water: Protecting Our Great Waters (March 22, 2012) 
• On Our Way to an Everglades Day (February 21, 2012)

Today is World Water Day, a day designated by the United Nations to draw attention to the importance of freshwater.

And for good reason. Water drives regional economies, sustains the natural world, and shapes the daily lives of people all across the globe. As Yves Corbiere recently posted, water is not just key to our survival, it’s central to our memory and imagination. However, our own nation has not adequately prioritized protecting important aquatic ecosystems—or, as NPCA calls them, our Great Waters—which stretch from the Great Lakes to the Everglades to the Chesapeake Bay to Puget Sound. As a result, degraded water quality, invasive species, altered water flows, climate change, and loss of habitat have taken their toll on our natural and cultural landscapes.

Clean water is vital for our national parks and their millions of visitors. Water in its myriad forms—seeps, springs, wetlands, aquifers, geysers, streams, lakes, and oceans—is fundamental to the plants and wildlife people find when visiting national parks from Acadia to Death Valley, Everglades to Wrangell-St. Elias. From deserts to rainforests, wetlands to glaciers, water is central to all that is preserved and experienced in our national parks.

The health and availability of water, however, is inextricably linked to what happens on the land. With more than two-thirds of all national park units located in Great Waters watersheds, the ways we use the land around national parks (whether agriculture or urban development) impacts the quality and quantity of water in national parks. Protecting water in and around parks is about restoring and protecting the land around America’s treasured places.

NPCA is engaged in landscape conservation and restoration work all over the country. National parks are the heart of larger ecosystems, and the health of parks is dependent on the health of the larger area.

Although NPCA is making progress with land and water restoration efforts in many areas, parks are hampered by a lack of funding, broken federal water policies, and limited political will. For example, in South Florida, NPCA successfully lobbied to bridge a portion of a road near Everglades National Park known as the Tamiami Trail, eliminating a dam and allowing water to flow naturally underneath it. While this one-mile segment is a huge milestone, Congress has not yet funded the more significant restoration work needed to bridge five more miles of the eleven-mile stretch of the trail that blocks water from reaching the park.

Some projects offer coalition support to critical watersheds. Along the Colorado River, NPCA is building a basin-wide coalition of citizens who care about the river and its adjacent parks, such as Grand Canyon and Canyonlands, to help highlight the profound impact that river management has on our parks and problems that occur when water is diverted by dams and other development. In the Great Lakes, NPCA is working with college students to restore the Great Marsh at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which will improve the quality of water flowing through Indiana Dunes and into Lake Michigan. NPCA continues to partner with communities with the goal of restoring these and other Great Waters. 

Learn more about what NPCA is doing in our Great Waters and how you can get involved: http://www.npca.org/protecting-our-parks/air-land-water/great-waters/. Learn more about NPCA landscape conservation efforts: http://www.npca.org/protecting-our-parks/air-land-water/landscape-conservation/npca-s-landscape-conservation-campaign.html.

Everglades and Biscayne National Parks bring millions of visitors to Florida. Keeping these parks healthy is not just ecologically sound; it also supports thousands of jobs and a strong state economy. Yet 2011 was a dismal year for Everglades restoration in the state legislature. Lawmakers dismembered laws intended to discourage urban sprawl, diluted water quality protections, and drastically cut critical funds to park restoration projects.

Was it just the economy, or were other issues to blame? Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s hard to win the Super Bowl with a team full of rookies.

In January 2011, newly elected Governor Rick Scott was sworn in, along with 43 freshman representatives and 12 new state senators. The sea of fresh faces in Tallahassee meant less institutional knowledge about the economic and ecological benefits of America’s Everglades to Florida’s economy. Just a dizzying 16 weeks after the start of the session, the legislature had already passed damaging laws and a devastating budget. 

Compounding the problem, Florida is a large state, spanning nearly 60,000 square miles. This can create a challenge for reaching lawmakers on the issues facing the Everglades’ vast ecosystem. It’s not only difficult for advocates to travel to representatives in every corner of the state, but it also means that some lawmakers are physically disconnected from the natural riches in South Florida.

NPCA’s Sun Coast team is working with Florida lawmakers during the 2012 session to establish an annual Everglades Day to underscore the state’s dependence on a healthy Everglades for a clean water supply and strong economy. This day would be a special observance of Everglades activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s birthday on April 7th that could help bring conservationists and citizens together to educate elected officials in Tallahassee every year. This effort would ensure the Everglades ecosystem remains a top priority for elected officials and all Floridians while honoring Douglas’s legacy of protecting the “River of Grass.”

Senator David Simmons of Orlando and Representative Steve Perman of Boca Raton have recognized this need and spearheaded legislation to designate Everglades Day to elevate awareness, restore historic funding levels of $100 million annually, and protect America’s Everglades for our children and grandchildren to enjoy.  

UPDATE, MARCH 7, 2012: The Florida Legislature voted this afternoon in favor of an Everglades Day. Read the official statement by Dawn Shirreffs on NPCA’s website on this victory for the Everglades, and thank you to everyone who took action on this important issue.