Rosalind Becker '08

Policy Intern
  National Park Service
    Washington, DC  

January 2008  

During my month-long detail with the National Park Service (NPS) I was immersed in the complex network of a federal agency.  The position offered me not only a snapshot of policy formulation but also an education in government service.  I spent the first week figuring out the NPS and how it is organized, from the security check-point in the lobby to the top floor Office of Policy.  I learned about the three-tiered directives system, starting at the top by reading the 2006 Management Policies and then some of the many Director’s Orders.  I also had the opportunity to meet NPS employees from other offices as I attended lectures and meetings during the day covering topics such as global climate change and carbon offsets.  NPS employees can navigate the intricate network of their agency with ease, and everybody knows the key points of contact for answering a question or solving a problem.  The importance of our National Parks is quite evident by the scale and complexity of their management system.

I learned that the National Park Service is inextricably linked to the foundations of environmental policy in the United States.  As a leader in land stewardship and conservation, the Park Service has a responsibility to aggressively implement these acts.  In fact NPS protects endangered species, air resources, and water resources beyond the level of compliance to state plans.  Under the Organic Act, the NPS must ensure the unimpairment of these resources, which requires stricter policies that are not always appreciated by damaging parties.  I learned that the most powerful tools that National Park Service employees can use to promote these acts are information and partnerships.  The National Parks provide an excellent study area for issues such as air quality, water quality, and population trends, and a wealth of information is collected in the parks all the time.  This information has been organized into databases that can be accessed by states and used to identify trends and set regulations.  Even though the NPS has a responsibility to promote these foundational environmental acts, they are granted no real authority to implement them in the language of the acts themselves.  As a result, partnerships with other agencies and states have become very important for the NPS to play a role in decision-making.  As Chris Shaver explained, once the states recognized the importance of the national parks to their citizens and their economies, they were more than willing to cooperate with the NPS.  With the consequences of rising global temperatures there will be no rest for the weary, as every natural resource office will have to consider the effects of climate change in the way they implement these acts.

I also helped with program development research for GPS recreational activities (GPSRA) within the parks.  With the growing concern that children in America are losing touch with nature, there is an effort to attract a younger audience to the parks.  Our hope is that the technological component of GPSRA will appeal to children and teenagers who would rather play video games than go hiking.  Even though many EarthCache sites (a type of GPSRA that focuses on geologic features and promotes Leave No Trace principles) already exist in parks, hidden by private citizens but approved by park management, parks might be hesitant to take on the responsibility of developing a new program.  My research is meant to convince parks of the merits of GPSRA, by linking the existing EarthCache sites to the natural resources of the park in which they are located and the interpretive themes that are meant to highlight them.  I selected a variety of park units, including historic sites, national seashores, and national parks with both park-approved and park-sponsored EarthCache sites to demonstrate the range of GPSRA as an interpretive tool.  Even in National Historic Sites, for example, the geology of the area played an integral role in the event that took place there.  The presence of the EarthCache site will complement the history lesson with an explanation of the geologic importance of the area.  Hopefully this research will provide options for parks to consider some forms of GPSRA to be effective interpretive tools.

The month I have spent with the National Park Service has given me a look into the widespread influence of policy in the network of national park management.  The work that is done by the Office of Policy is the foundation upon which all other offices must operate; it sets guiding principles that provides direction for decisions and keeps the expansive agency unified.  It also must consider the needs of all parties that may be affected.  We applied these principles to the GPSRA project by keeping everyone, from park interpreters to officials from the Geologic Society of America (GSA), informed about our goals and our research process.  If GPSRA are more fully developed in the national parks, it may be necessary to write new policy guidance to assist in the process.  The Directives (or policy) System is designed with the future in mind, and it is capable of handling both minor changes and urgent, unanticipated problems.  Officials in the various natural and cultural resources divisions are redefining their responsibilities under the threat of global climate change.  They rely on policies from the National Park Service and other government bodies to guide their decisions.  I have learned that the most important goal of the Office of Policy is to create a framework by which the original National Park Service mission can be achieved even as it approaches its 100th birthday.