Administration

This will be my last column for updating readers on administrative issues facing the National Park Service. In late August I transferred to the Bureau of Land Management so I no longer am a good source of information on NPS administration. If you are interested in being the contributing author to this column, please contact Teresa Ford, editor, at fordedit@aol.com.

For this last column, I thought I’d reflect a little on my 20+ years with the NPS, what I’ve learned and how being in the administrative field for most of that time was a distinct pleasure. I’m going to miss the NPS, but this opportunity with BLM will allow me to return someday with better, more rounded experience to expand beyond my administrative roots.

I’ve worked at a variety of parks, both in size and resources. I started my career in Yellowstone, moved to the Rocky Mountain Regional Office, then back into the field to Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Theodore Roosevelt, Amistad and Yosemite.

Here are few of my lessons learned:

• Don’t be afraid to experience and work in all different kinds of NPS sites; don’t get “stuck” on working only in the most popular, well-known places, or the biggest places or only the natural areas.

• Expand your horizons beyond your current career field. Gain an appreciation for all of the different types of positions available in the NPS. If you’re a park ranger, detail into maintenance or administration or another occupation that can help you better understand all of the people who make parks what we love. If you’re in administration, go be an entrance station employee or a trail worker to be reminded of what we support. By doing this, you’ll have a greater appreciation for all employees in the NPS.

• Recognize that it is important for all of us to have long-term views of the organization and a shared vision in order to translate that vision into action. We all must be able to develop new insights into situations and apply innovative solutions to make the NPS better. Each of us is responsible for creating a work environment that encourages creative thinking and teamwork.

The NPS needs to stress accountability and continuous improvement to every employee. It’s important that the NPS has effective controls that are developed and maintained to ensure the integrity of the organization. In my experiences, unfortunately, some employees did not hold themselves accountable for rules and responsibilities, and some supervisors did not hold their subordinates accountable. To get better, this attitude/culture must change so the NPS can focus on results and positive outcomes.

I want to thank all of my NPS mentors for teaching me how to be a better employee, person and member of the planet. I wish you all the best of times and luck and will hope to see you in the future as an NPS leader.

If you are ever in Lakeview, Oregon, be sure to stop in and say hello.

Interpretation

The Interpretive Challenge of Climate Change — Today’s interpreters are facing one of the most vexing and critical questions of our time. How can we be most effective in our attempts to shape the public perception about the causes of climate change?

We are in a unique position as the interpreters of climate change. Parks are full of connections to this issue and they make magnificent and evocative backdrops. The combination of a beautiful location and a well-informed message can connect the science of climate change to the visitor’s NPS experience. This will achieve greater public understanding of this issue one audience at a time.

People are uniquely open to this issue during a park visit. They are in an evocative resource and are likely to feel a sense of connection to the place. This is a key moment to make the climate issue tangible for them.

The subject of climate change is charged because it gets right to a person’s living experience. Some visitors may not want to acknowledge that things are getting warmer. Maybe it scares them. They also know it is going to cost them money. Interpreters sometimes find their programs hijacked by visitors just chomping at the bit to use their rhetoric to overwhelm the conservation message. We need to be ready for those challenges. As a professional interpreter, have you trained yourself in debate techniques to handle visitor resistance? If you are a supervisor, how prepared is your staff to address this issue and what have you done to prepare them?

When we interpret the effect of climate change on parks, we may run into resistance at the mere suggestion that human activity is the cause. Visitor doubt reveals the scale of public skepticism. To develop a message that changes doubt to acceptance requires interpreters to look inward and challenge a few assumptions. It is easy to get caught up in the NPS echo chamber and forget that most visitors don’t pay climate change much mind in their daily life. We have worked closely with and have relied on scientists for years. This familiarity bred trust. Most visitors do not have the same trusting relationship with science. To assume that the audience is on the same page as the interpreter is a mistake. When it comes to scientific subjects, this mistake is amplified due to politics and the visitor’s own lack of information. Knowing the audience is a critical factor when tackling perceptions about climate change and to counter the misinformation they hear. Never doubt that the climate change “denier” movement is sophisticated, well funded and motivated. Research on their talking points provides an understanding of why their message has appeal, and it will allow us to craft messages to debunk their arguments.

In the countless exchanges going on right now in parks, few of us will sway the person making the argument against science, but why not turn the tables on them? Think about all the other folks watching the exchange between interpreter and skeptic. They probably have not made a decision about this issue and have malleable minds that could be open to a new idea. A well-informed interpreter will gain new followers if they handle the denier well. However, if the climate change denier gets the upper hand, you will have set back public understanding because an undecided audiences will gravitate to the best articulated argument. We want to make sure we come out bold, calm and knowledgeable during these exchanges to increase the chance our message is received.

To coordinate the NPS plan regarding this issue, the NPS Climate Change Response program was established. The members of the group are addressing the issue on three fronts: mitigation for current effects on parks, adaptations to infrastructure such as the installation of solar panels in parks, and a communications group to provide resources that interpreters can use when talking with the public about this issue. For those who want to participate in the CCR’s monthly webinar series, go to the NRPC website (http://nrpcsharepoint/) on a government computer and click the Climate Change button. The webinars and other resources can be found there. Each webinar features guest speakers and interactive discussions. There are other climate change websites online, including realclimate.org, to further assist you in crafting a climate change message for visitors.

It won’t be enough though just to understand the science of climate change and know our visitors. It is also important to evaluate the interpretive techniques we use so that we don’t make some of the same mistakes our predecessors made in their attempts to get conservation messages across. One good example of a method to avoid is the speaker who tries to make audiences feel guilty about how bad people are for the world. While loss, sadness and similar emotions are effective to evoke connections to resources in the audience that result in changes to behavior, guilt is radioactive. Manufacturing a downer directed at visitors is an attack and closes the door to visitor understanding right when we need them to listen.

So what to do? To stay genuine and avoid the appearance that any of us are talking-points drones, we must develop individual approaches to this issue that are in line with our agency’s official position. Do your own research and come to this issue on your own terms. That way you can genuinely match your knowledge and techniques with the visitor’s point of view.

It behooves all 21st century interpreters to be conversant on this issue. As you develop your techniques, put yourself in the shoes of the visitor and see it through their eyes. The public is not the enemy. Their resistance comes from natural self-preservation and often an insufficiently informed point of view. In a park setting we can be the patient, positive teacher and open a dialogue. Perhaps we will influence some of them and do our part to win the perception war about one of the most threatening issues facing our parks today.

Protection

Rangers as Game Wardens — Stewards, firefighters, police officers, educators, EMTs, SAR technicians . . . as rangers we carry on our shoulders numerous roles wrapped up into one job. This, for many, manifests into one of the greatest joys of rangering: the sheer variety of our work.

Every year about this time, as the leaves begin to change, the air begins to crisp and dusk arrives at an earlier hour, many rangers complement that variety with hunting contacts. For a few sweet months out of the year, we can add game warden to our repertoire.

Not all parks require such work of their rangers, but a high percentage do. Whether your park permits hunting within its boundaries, prohibits it on NPS lands, but borders acreage where hunting is permitted, or prohibits it outright with no bordering hunting land nearby, one thing is constant: this time of year people will be in search of game, legally or otherwise.

Knowing this gives rangers an outstanding opportunity to uphold part of the duties we swore to: resource protection. Over the years, I’ve learned a few practices from firsthand experience that help get me through a hunting season safely and can even serve to make some allies in the hunting community. Here are “The Ten Essentials” we can plan into our operations this time of year:

1. Split shifts. Many species of big game are either nocturnal or crepuscular, the latter meaning that they’re most active at dawn and dusk. Hunters cannot legally hunt at night, so those wishing to keep on the legal side optimize their chances of bagging a kill by hunting at dawn and dusk. Accordingly, that’s when we should be on patrol. Plus, it makes catching spotlighters a lot easier.

2. Boundary patrols. If your park allows hunting, take time to discover the “sweet spots” that hunters tend to frequent. But patrol the boundaries, too. If your park prohibits hunting, you’ll definitely want to patrol the boundaries, especially if your park borders Forest Service land or a state wildlife management area where hunting is permitted. When the hunters “accidentally” wander into the park, always ask them to see their map, and be sure your boundary is posted.

3. Decoy operations. This is one of the most effective, and admittedly fun techniques we can employ to deter road hunting. Whether your park allows hunting or prohibits it, decoy operations work well. Either way, road hunting is lazy and illegal. If your magistrate supports the program, you can recoup a fair sum from each case where your decoy is damaged. At one park I worked at, we accumulated enough restitution funds to purchase a new decoy and tactical uniforms.

4. Hunter safety checkpoints. These can be used as a fixed enforcement operation wherein your express objective is to check vehicles as they pass through to ensure occupants are not carrying or possessing loaded firearms. Intercepting those who do has a direct effect in reducing road hunting. Plus, conducting a checkpoint enables you to make numerous positive hunter contacts and additional contacts unrelated to hunting. Be sure to consult RM-9 and your park’s SOP and follow all requirements.

5. Tactical uniforms, including long guns. Get your supervisor to authorize the use of tactical uniforms for special operations, such as decoy ops, and to set aside dollars for their purchase. No tactical uniform is complete without your long gun.

6. Preseason weapons familiarization training. Put a training day on the calendar in September for familiarizing rangers with commercially made firearms, especially rifles. This training is vital both for officer safety in the field and preventing an embarrassing situation. Nothing makes us look sillier or more dangerous, in the eyes of hunters, than when we try to unload their firearm but don’t know how. Include bolt-, lever- and pump-action models, various types of clips and magazines, various types of safeties, and a few handguns. Check and double check that no ammunition (except your duty carry, of course) is anywhere in the vicinity of this training.

7. Preseason training on wildlife regulations. At that same training, hold an intelligent discussion on the various regulations that are enforceable at your park, whether they’re state wildlife laws, CFR or the Lacey Act. Read a couple of case studies. Invite state game wardens and cross train with them. Ask them to lead the training. It will foster strong relationships between our agency and theirs.

8. Preseason scouting patrols for signs of hunters. If you know you’re going to be on hunter contact patrols in October and November, then get out into the resource in August and September and track both the game and the hunters, who also are scouting for game sign. Use your tracking skills, and if you haven’t been to tracking training, get that remedied.

9. License plate logs from trailheads and/or pullouts. During prime hunting periods and open seasons, maintain a license plate log of vehicles you see repeatedly parked at trailheads, pullouts or other sweet-spot access areas. They probably belong to hunters. Run the tags through your dispatch, and share your information with your fellow rangers. Remember, they’re your backup.

10. Attend a local hunter safety education course. If you haven’t already attended a hunter safety education course, attend one this fall. Attend one even if you don’t plan to hunt. These courses are short, chock full of excellent safety advice and usually include some timely survival components. They provide a terrific inroad to building positive relationships with prominent members of your local hunting community.

Each of these ideas is relatively simple to implement into your existing patrol procedures. They get our boots dirty, get us out into the resource, strengthen our hearts, bodies and minds, build rapport with the law-abiding hunters, and help us apprehend those who choose to violate conservation laws.

~ Kevin Moses, Buffalo National River

At a soundscapes/acoustic resource summit at Grand Teton in September, participants from the host park, home to a commercial airport that predated enlargement of the park in 1950, joined staff from Grand Canyon, where air tours have been the topic of considerable discussion for several decades, and the NPS natural sounds program in Colorado. They planned to discuss progress and issues in protecting this increasingly valued resource. As told to Congress in the Report on the Effects of Aircraft Overflights on the National Park System, a systemwide survey of park visitors revealed that nearly as many persons come to national parks to enjoy the natural soundscape (91 percent) as come to view the scenery (93 percent).

Director’s Order #47 addresses soundscape preservation and noise management. Intrusive sounds can distract visitors from the resources and purposes of both natural and cultural areas. Even parks that appear as they did in historical context do not sound like they once did, and natural sounds are being masked or obscured by a wide variety of human activities.

In a few parks, such as Denali, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, sound ecologists have established baseline data on the natural ambient sound level, synonymous with “natural quiet.” From this, managers can establish acoustic goals for areas of their parks, and identify the nature and level of impacts, along with potential management actions to limit adverse effects on desired conditions. The director’s order calls for parks to respect the rights of their neighbors and the vital missions of other government agencies, including the military and the FAA, while engaging constructively with those responsible for noises that impact parks.

Airports, air tours and snowmobiles have dominated the press and public attention in this area, but parks are also all called upon to evaluate self-generated noise and address it too. Are there areas of park operations — from administrative use of boats, heavy equipment and chain saws to how we generate power and transport staff and visitors — that you might improve upon in your park?

In a recent survey of park visitors to Grand Teton’s most popular trail (to Inspiration Point above Jenny Lake), researchers found that visitors placed high value on hearing natural sounds, including waterfalls, birds and even the wind in the trees. A top detractor was the sound of cell phones in the wilderness. They observed visitors confronting others about use of this pervasive technology along the trail. Before we take out our own cell phones to “check in” while out of the office, let’s consider the effect our conversation might have on those around us and on the environment’s natural acoustical setting.

NOTE: If you work in resource management and are interested in becoming a columnist in this space, please contact the editor at fordedit@aol.com.