Imagine boating to paradise and then—without meaning to—causing it harm. Thanks to more than a decade of work in the Virgin Islands, a national park visit by boat is now gentler on the marine environment.

The spectacular coastal scenery, crystal clear waters, reliable winds, and beautiful bays of Virgin Islands National Park and the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument have made them popular destinations for boaters. In the past, these visitors had to use anchors to secure their vessels, causing considerable, albeit unintentional, damage to sea grass beds, coral reefs, and other  benthic (seabed or seafloor) resources. To combat this problem, the park embarked on a mooring program to provide a safe and reliable alternative to anchoring with the long-term goal of creating an anchorless park.

Moorings are permanent installations that allow boats to stay in one place without using anchors. In our case we drive heavy-duty augur-like devices about 15 feet into the seabed and then connect a line to a buoy on the surface (see a diagram of how this works). Boats attach to the buoy and are secure. Anchors are a more temporary solution, disturbing the seabed every time they are dropped and then retrieved. Just imagine the damage that could be done by 50 boats dropping anchors and then pulling them up day after day.

Park leadership and the Friends of Virgin Islands National Park finally achieved our long-held goal of an anchorless park in February 2013. Since the beginning of the program, the Friends group has installed 340 moorings and invested more than $663,000 in this program.

Starting back in 1999, the Friends installed 180 moorings for overnight use in ten bays around St. John. These white mooring balls along the north and south shores of St. John have played a significant role in protecting coral reefs, allowing the recovery of sea grass and protecting other benthic resources. The sea grass beds had been seriously depleted due to anchoring, but now if you snorkel in the mooring fields you will see a rich carpet of sea grass–much to the delight (and survival) of the myriad of marine creatures that make the sea grass their home.

In 2004, the Friends embarked on a program to install moorings in the recently designated Coral Reef National Monument. As a marine protected area, anchoring was prohibited within the monument. But, while we supported the conservation policies of the monument, we felt that the prohibition on anchoring precluded many of the traditional uses of the monument’s waters.  Installing moorings was the perfect answer and a “win-win” for both the users and the environment: allowing users to continue to enjoy this unique marine environment while providing needed protection to the natural resources. In this case, the Friends installed two dive moorings at popular dive sites in the monument, six moorings for blue runner fishing, and 125 storm-mooring berths and 11 day-use moorings in Hurricane Hole, a traditional refuge here for vessels during tropical storms. These moorings were installed in four phases between 2004 and 2008.

All of the moorings mentioned above were for boats up to a maximum of 60 feet in length. Vessels larger than that still had to anchor. Earlier this year, we installed 14 moorings for boats between 60 and 100 feet in six bays, finally making the park anchorless.

The protection of the park’s marine resources was obviously the principal objective of the mooring installations. However, the moorings also have a significant impact on the visiting boaters’ experience by providing a safe and convenient means of securing their boats while enjoying Virgin Islands National Park and the Coral Reef National Monument.

Fort McHenry is a source of fierce pride for the residents of Baltimore. It is here that our citizens stopped the British Navy from attacking the city during the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1814. The flag that flew over the fort the morning after the battle not only signaled a defensive victory, but inspired a young lawyer, watching from a nearby ship, to compose a poem that would eventually become our national anthem. I visited that exact same flag this past weekend. It’s currently on display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. I grew up in this area and have taken many trips to the museums in Washington throughout my life. I’ve seen this flag several times. This one object, more than any other, inspires a personal sense of patriotism and continues to make me reflect on the events that happened at Fort McHenry in Baltimore almost 200 years ago. 

Now, I get to visit Fort McHenry several times a month. It is the location of the National Aquarium’s urban field station. Adjacent to the fort is a ten-acre wetland created by the Maryland Department of Transportation as mitigation for constructing the I-95 tunnel that runs just offshore of the park. After years of inattention, the National Aquarium took over stewardship of the wetland in 1998 for use as an urban outdoor classroom and site for community-based stewardship activities and citizen science. We’ve hosted thousands of local students at the wetland site. Sometimes, it is the first time Baltimore City students get a chance to make a meaningful connection to the natural world. Students may have a chance to seine for fish (up to 20 species have been identified using the wetlands), bird watch (more than 250 species have been documented at the fort), plant native plants in the wetland or demonstration rain garden, or study wetland ecology. They may also have a chance to observe any of the large variety of animals that use the marsh for food or shelter. The list includes river otter, muskrat, deer, fox, and many species of turtle and snake. 

Every spring, the National Aquarium partners with the National Park Service, NPCA, and others to recruit volunteers to restore this vital habitat. Volunteers represent the diversity of the Baltimore community and come from local community associations, corporations, schools, churches, civic groups, social clubs, and other venues. Like us, our volunteers see real value in creating a healthy habitat for local wildlife and a much-needed outdoor classroom space for students. Since volunteer efforts began, citizens have helped plant native trees and marsh grasses, install bird boxes, and collect nearly 600,000 pieces of debris from this urban wetland. This work all adds up to create a valuable green space in the heart of Baltimore City.

Our next event will be held April 27, 2013, in celebration of Earth Day and Arbor Day. If you would like to help support our restoration and environmental education efforts at the fort, check out our ioby project page. If you are interested in joining us as a volunteer, please register here.

If you liked this story, you might also like

• “A Gift of the Whole People”: How Crowdfunding Can Help Revitalize National Parks (February 25, 2013)
• Want to Feel Happy and Appreciated? Help Out at a National Park (November 30, 2012)
• O Say, Can You See the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail? (August 7, 2012)

NPCA recently forged a new partnership with the organization I helped found, ioby, as a way to provide a platform for local groups to crowdfund projects in our country’s beloved national parks. It sounds like a cutting-edge idea, and it is—though another cause beat us to the punch by more than a hundred years.

In the late 19th century, French writer and political figure Edouard de Laboulaye came up with the idea for France to give to the United States a symbol of liberty, 100 years after Bastille Day and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The Statue of Liberty was built in two parts. French cities, towns, and individuals contributed two million francs, securing all the necessary funding for the statue’s steel and copper by 1880. But, years later, the United States, still embroiled in a rivalry of which city—Philadelphia, Boston, or New York City—would be the statue’s home state, was unable to come up with the money to build the pedestal upon which Lady Liberty would stand.

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer had recently purchased the New York City daily, The World. He decided to take up the cause for New York City and inadvertently launched the first American crowdfunding campaign. On March 16, 1885, The World ran this plea:

We must raise the money! The World is the people’s paper, and now it appeals to the people to come forward and raise the money. The $250,000 that the making of the Statue cost was paid in by the masses of the French people—by the working men, the tradesmen, the shop girls, the artisans—by all, irrespective of class or condition. Let us respond in like manner. Let us not wait for the millionaires to give us this money. It is not a gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America, but a gift of the whole people of France to the whole people of America.

By August 11, 1885, the campaign brought in 125,000 donations totaling $100,000, many people donating less than a dollar each to create the foundation for this great symbol of liberty, now managed by the National Park Service.

Today, NPCA and ioby join together to provide an environmental crowdfunding tool (ioby.org/NPCA) that will allow local leaders to continue this great legacy of using citizen philanthropy to support more of our urban national treasures.

ioby is a Brooklyn-based web crowd-resourcing platform. ioby’s name stands for “in our back yards”—the opposite of NIMBY. We’ve designed this platform for all people who say, “Yes, I want positive change in my community!” On ioby, anyone with a great idea to make her neighborhood stronger and more sustainable can raise tax-deductible donations, recruit local volunteers, and share ideas in a like-minded community.

ioby began as a pilot program in New York City and has a special interest in supporting projects in dense urban centers, which is why we are so excited to be working on this partnership with NPCA and their community partners, National Aquarium (Baltimore, Maryland), Tropical Audubon Society (Miami, Florida), and Roots and Wings (Los Angeles, California), who are dedicated to connecting city dwellers to the great outdoors.

We launch the pilot today with three great campaigns. In Baltimore, the National Aquarium and National Park Service will recruit volunteers to clear and maintain trails at the wetland adjacent to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. Tropical Audubon Society will lead kayaking trips in Biscayne Bay in Miami. In Los Angeles, the Roots and Wings Program will bring high school students on outdoor adventures into five different urban national parks.

These crowdfunding campaigns are not so different from the campaign to fund the Statue of Liberty. Sure, we have some advantages. Web tools make collecting donations easier and social channels like Facebook and Twitter help us amplify these stories and visions.

But the premise is not unlike what Mr. Pulitzer posed in 1885. Combined with thousands of other small donations, a single dollar gains power. With others, the voice of a lone micro-donor grows louder, and says, “Yes, I want healthy wetlands in Baltimore!” and, “Yes, I support kayaking trips in Biscayne Bay!” and “Yes, I want Los Angeles youth to visit more national parks!”

Learn more about easy ways you can contribute a dollar (or more) to support these urban national park projects and other important causes at ioby.org/NPCA.

UPDATE, March 14, 2012: Thanks to generous community support, one of the three NPCA-supported projects, the Roots and Wings Program, has met its fundraising goal, enabling organizers to bring Los Angeles high school students to national parks this spring. To volunteer for this project, or to support the other two active urban national park projects, visit the ioby website at ioby.org/NPCA.

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.

 —

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

As a resident of the New York City area and the wife of a business school student, I’ve spent countless hours listening to my peers discuss which new mobile app or digital tool will revolutionize America and improve the quality of life for people throughout the nation. Yet, I remain convinced that one of America’s greatest products does not rely on software upgrades or Wi-Fi access to bring happiness to an increasing number of Americans each year. I’m referring to an island oasis filled with sun-kissed mountains, sandy beaches, and deep blue waters located off the coast of Maine: Acadia National Park.

Acadia National Park is located near the town of Bar Harbor on Maine’s Mount Desert Island and became a national park site in 1916. The region was initially inhabited by the native Wabanaki people and the first Europeans settled in 1763. Since then, Bar Harbor has been home to such prominent Americans as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who invested millions into Acadia. Most notably, he financed, designed, and directed the construction of an innovative 50-mile network of carriage trails throughout the park between 1915 and 1933. Like all great businessmen, Mr. Rockefeller recognized the significant value of Acadia and was dedicated to increasing the public’s access and exposure to this national treasure.

Mr. Rockefeller made a commitment to public access in Acadia that continues to this day. With a generous contribution from Nature Valley, NPCA recently partnered with Friends of Acadia, a leading organization in grassroots park stewardship, and the National Park Service (NPS) to help fulfill the goal of completing Village Connector Trails to provide better access to the park. These trails are designed to decrease automobile congestion while facilitating increased connectivity of visitors and residents to the park, continuing Rockefeller’s legacy.

On June 2, 2012, National Trails Day, I had the opportunity to represent NPCA at the dedication ceremony of the Duck Brook Connector Trail, the fifth trail in the Village Connector Trail series. This trail begins on Maine’s Route 3 outside the front entrance of the Acadia Inn and (thanks to a generous easement from the inn) provides a direct route to the carriage roads developed by Mr. Rockefeller almost a century earlier. During the trail dedication, I was struck by the number and diversity of people who attended: They were neighbors and tourists, seasoned park-lovers and first-timers, retirees and college students. Despite inclement weather, they were eager to commend the tremendous efforts of NPCA, Friends of Acadia, and NPS and hike the new trail for the first time.

The effort to make Acadia more open and accessible is not over. Nature Valley has continued to provide generous funding toward this project, and NPCA in conjunction with Friends of Acadia is currently completing another trail in Trenton, Maine, just outside the new Acadia Welcome Center. And as I toured my favorite national park this past October, I reflected on other initiatives that the various partners of Acadia, like Nature Valley, have advanced over the years to ensure that more people experience and appreciate this special place. Their work has included diverse projects, from clean, propane buses that tour the park to the Schoodic Education and Resource Center, Acadia’s training and research center dedicated to educating youth in one of Maine’s poorest communities.

Acadia, like other national parks, is a one-of-a-kind, American-made creation that has provided ecological health, recreational opportunities, economic prosperity, and an appreciation for the natural world to millions of people. At NPCA, we will continue to champion Acadia and applaud the efforts of NPS and Friends of Acadia for bringing the park to a larger and more diverse segment of America. I am grateful to Nature Valley and other public and private partners that recognize our national parks are ventures that are just as worthy of investment today as they were almost a century ago.

Lessons from NPCA’s Nature Valley Restoration Event at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve

By Seth Shteir, California Desert Field Representative

As a former teacher, I’ve always associated autumn with buying pencils and notebooks and easing back into the school year. However, in my newer role as NPCA’s California Desert Field Representative, the season has taken on a whole new meaning.

The fall is now inextricably linked in my mind to National Public Lands Day. It’s a day to celebrate our national parks and other protected areas, but also a day to give back and invest in future generations.

I thought a great deal about these values during our Nature Valley Restoration Event at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve on September 29. With the support of Nature Valley’s Preserve the Parks program, the event was a community-led collaboration between NPCA, Friends of Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, the Palm Springs Bureau of Land Management, and College of the Desert. More than 40 volunteers from our partner organizations, along with the U.S. Marines, local youth, and citizens from Morongo Valley, removed invasive clover and cleared trails during a cool fall morning. Big Morongo Canyon is an essential source of water for Joshua Tree National Park’s bighorn sheep, as well as an internationally renowned bird-watching destination. The restoration work to remove invasive species will result in a healthier ecology for this fragile canyon and for Joshua Tree National Park.

Adding artistic expression to the restoration, College of the Desert Professor Ruth Nolan brought her students and ran an afternoon poetry workshop in Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. Ruth is a published poet who has written extensively about the desert and was editor of No Place for a Puritan, an anthology of writing from the California desert. “In my class curriculum, I integrate the literary written arts with an emphasis on nature, particularly our surrounding desert areas,” says Nolan. Not only did her young students pull more invasive clover and clear more brush from trails than I did, but they also made the connection between the world of art and the world of nature. Two of the young students wrote poems demonstrating their appreciation for public lands after the restoration event and a hike through Big Morongo Canyon’s lush desert oasis.

Desert

By Jennipher Martinez

sand dune
    loose, looks soft

tortoise
    treading its way through sand

oasis
    providing water for animals and plants

lizard
    looking for bugs to eat, then sliding away

sunrise
    the time I look to make a new day

Desert Oasis Soundscape

By Darlene Arciga

Here I sit, alone,
hidden beneath the trees,
in my solitary state
but I know I am not alone.

The trees beside me
sway gently to and fro,
responding to the cool caress
of the afternoon breeze,

Their leaves like strands
of my hair, swaying peacefully.
The warm wind whispers
its hushed secrets

to the life around me:
the faint buzz of unknown creatures,
and the cheerful chirps of birds
singing songs to the earth

How relaxing this is….
let me stay here forever.

After hearing and reading these poems, it occurred to me that if stewardship of our national parks and public lands can be thought of as a relay race, these students had taken the baton and were running towards the finish! Luz Olmeda, one of the College of the Desert students and poetry workshop participants, summed up the value of special places like our desert national parks and public lands nicely:

“It’s important to protect public lands because they are areas that connect us to our origins and source. These areas have essence, stories and life. When we preserve them we give ourselves the opportunity to stay in touch with nature and wildlife that we don’t get to experience any other way.”

I got to see that look first-hand when I joined 11 other staff members from NPCA on a volunteer service project at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia earlier this month. It was our task to help install 120 feet of post and rail fencing along a ridge in the historic lower town. As far as projects go, it was not that complex an operation. Yet with park budgets on the decline and Park Service personnel spread increasingly thin, it was the sort of work that might have gone undone for weeks, months, or even years, had it not been for volunteers and a commitment on the part of the park staff to recruit and manage our labor.

In my day job, I work as a legislative representative. I help our champions in Congress and in communities all across the country to advance legislation and policies that benefit our National Park System. As wonderful as that work is, it can often take multiple sessions of Congress and many years to enact a bill or designate a park. Volunteering in a national park provides a more immediate sense of satisfaction. There are 120 feet of historic fencing on a ridge at Harpers Ferry that wasn’t up the morning my colleagues and I arrived. We built that fence together and have the splinters and sore muscles to proudly show for it.

Somewhere, as you read this, there’s a national park with a backlog maintenance project that needs doing. I urge you to lend a hand and help protect the most special places on the American landscape. My colleagues and I can’t wait to go back to Harpers Ferry and help out again. I can already see the smile on the face of the volunteer coordinator.

Get more information on volunteering at http://www.nps.gov/getinvolved/volunteer.htm.

-Alan Spears, Legislative Representative

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.

Engagement is a fairly common word these days. Companies, non-profits, and public land managers alike are looking for ways to connect with the changing demographic of the American public. But when it comes to engagement, what is really working? What efforts are making lasting change in the lives of young people and communities?

I decided to look at what engagement means in the National Park Service. Specifically, how do we successfully involve and appeal to communities of color? As a student employee of the National Park Service Conservation Study Institute, I was able to work closely with park staff and partners to explore how two large, urban parks–Santa Monica Mountains and Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Areas–engage their surrounding communities through youth programming. 

I spent three years meeting with and interviewing park and partner staff, program participants and their families, and community members. I was able to see programs in action, visit schools and talk with teachers and principals, and see the impacts of program activities firsthand in parks and communities. I distilled what I learned into six principles. These principles were shared across all the programs I explored, whether they were 5^th grade interdisciplinary school programs, internship programs, or single-visit fieldtrips.

1. It is critical to have staff members who are skilled in youth development and reflect the diversity of the local community. This leads program participants to feel comfortable and enables staff to act as mentors within and outside the program.
2. Leadership at both the park and partner organization need to remain committed to community engagement and encourage park and partner staff to experiment and be innovative in developing and delivering programs. Management needs to create an environment that supports creativity.
3. The parks and partners are more successful at engaging diverse youth when programs are developed through community dialogue; ensuring that school and community needs are met. Community events and interdisciplinary school programs take a considerable amount of time and effort but allow for programs that meet the needs of everyone.
4. Community service projects foster a general appreciation of stewardship and a personal sense of ownership toward park and community resources in program participants. Projects like riverbank cleanups and planting native species also provide youth with meaningful work that creates a feeling of ownership in the park and pride in their work.
5. Whether or not a program is designed to focus specifically on career exploration, getting hands-on experience and interacting with different park staff introduces youth participants to the range of job opportunities with the NPS.
6. Just as staff needs to be skilled in youth development, they should have an understanding of local cultures. Whether that is the ability to speak the various languages of the communities or incorporate local perspectives in interpretation, staff needs to be able to communicate and relate to communities. When staff is knowledgeable about local cultures, members of the community feel more comfortable and welcome in the park and its programs.

When parks and partners are working towards fulfillment of these six principles, they are actively developing programs that foster deep engagement–connecting with youth in ways that make national parks a vital part of program participants’ daily lives and visible members of surrounding communities. Does your local park do a good job of involving the community, reaching out to youth, and embracing diverse perspectives? Several of the programs from Santa Monica and Boston Harbor were started by community members that saw an opportunity or had an innovative idea. If you have ideas on how your local park can partner with the community, let them know. The most successful programs are the ones developed in partnership. 

To find out what is happening in your community, visit www.nps.gov/communities.

It was a hot day. Soaring temperatures meant we had to start early in the morning and quit around 11 a.m.–but even in that short window, we accomplished some impressive work. A coalition of agencies and nonprofits worked together to clear a road that connects the west side of Saguaro National Park with Ironwood Forest National Monument. We pulled out 270 bags, at an average of 30 pounds each, for a total of more than four tons of this invasive weed. 

This work is increasingly important as buffelgrass spreads throughout the Sonoran Desert. Not only does the grass suppress native plants, it also increases the chances that wildfires will spread and destroy large swaths of desert life. Some 2,000 acres of land inside Saguaro National Park are affected by the weed, threatening the fragile ecosystem, including the health of the park’s stately namesake cactus. 

Learn more about the fight to protect Saguaro National Park from buffelgrass with this informative Park Service fact sheet (PDF, 6.6 MB). NPCA also produced a podcast (listen here) that explains the wildfire risk buffelgrass presents to the area, and why it’s important to remove. If you live in the Tucson region and missed last weekend’s event, you can find more ways to get involved through the Friends of Saguaro National Park and Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center.

-Kevin Dahl, Arizona Program Manager