National parks, strapped for funding, are turning more to volunteer labor and outsourcing jobs previously conducted by rangers to make ends meet.
At Olympic National Park in Washington, officials have issued a call for volunteers to help with trail work up on Hurricane Ridge, while across the country at Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia the park is seeking someone to take over some ranger tours.
At Olympic, a $50,000 grant from Washington’s National Park Fund is underwriting the park's trail crew as it repairs and improves trails in the Hurricane Ridge area this month. In addition to funding the park’s trail crew for this work, the grant provides for including volunteers in the project, a park release seeking volunteers said.
“September is a beautiful month in the Olympic National Park high country,” said Olympic Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum. “We invite interested people to consider volunteering their time and efforts to upgrade the Hurricane Ridge area trails.”
The work will focus on improving the trails’ walking surfaces and drainage features and will involve digging and some physical exertion. Some revegetation work in the Hurricane Hill area is also planned. Potential volunteers should contact Larry Lack, Trails Foreman for Olympic National Park at 360-565-3178 for more information.
At Cumberland Island, meanwhile, the park last week issued a prospectus seeking proposals for a contract to operate the Cumberland Island Ferry within the national seashore. Part of that contract, however, also calls for the winning company to take over the Lands and Legacies tours, in which rangers have used vehicles to take visitors to parts of the seashore not easily reached on foot.
The new concession contract is expected to be awarded in early 2015, and will be for a 10-year term. Details of the contract can be found here.
Comments
SmokiesBackpacker/anonymous coward:
You seem pretty clueless here. You claim the NPS is fighting these volunteer implementation efforts at Olympic and elsewhere- but surprise, surprise: permanent employees of the NPS are the people asking for the volunteers.
One reason they may be asking for volunteers is because their budgets have been slashed. An example: in 2007, Sequoia National Park had 17 seasonal interpretive rangers- seasonals, in case any Tea Partiers here start foaming at the mouth- no benefits, no health insurance.
How many in 2014? 5. This has occurred at all our National Parks.
As to this hilarious comment from the peanut gallery:
"...By the way, isn't it true that the majority of current NPS volunteers are made up of a singular demographic, retired upper middle class white folks..."
No- it isn't. If it was true(in other words, FACT), you'd be able to guide us to a reference. That's how facts work, if you were curious.
My own direct observation is that every volunteer interp I've ever met in my life is a teacher on their summer break from a nearby school district- which is generally rural, and generally poor. Which means that the property tax base doesn't have much to pay teachers.
Suggesting that they are upper middle class is a spectacularly clueless statement.
As to replacing trail crew workers with volunteers, or seasonal interps with concession workers; both those job descriptions are no more than GS-4 or 5 positions- GS-4 paying 11.75/hour.
So 11.75/hour is too much to bust your ass in the backcountry, or drive a van and interpret resources for park visitors? Gotcha. Care to tell me what you do for a living, and why your overpaid rump shouldn't be replaced by a $7.25/hour temp worker? It's easy to do. Better yet- let's send your job to China. They need the work.
John Lovaas, NPT member for 58 seconds. Welcome to NPT and thanks for all your interest in this magazine over the years. :)
methinks this chord has struck a little too close to home! I lovat!
Backpacker--I am not sure what your problem is with former NPS employees. All I said is that they need to selected, trained and supervised with care. We certainly had volunteers in every park in which I worked. And I have been a volunteer myself. I know you are angry about the backcountry fee in the Smokies, but that does not merit the kind of insults you throw at everyone who disagrees with anything you say. Most of the former NPS employees I recognize on NPT because they use their real names are not as aggressive as you are.
And yes, EC, regular employees need to be carefully selected, trained and supervised also. I hope I did not give the impression that those items are necessary for just volunteers. If I did, I apologize.
Rick
May I suggest that we all use the IGNORE button for our friend from the Smokies? It would do a lot to keep discussions civil and productive. If he is ignored, he will soon retire.
John Quillen, I believe John asked you a serious question, and you should respond to it with at least some semblance of dignity and intelligence instead of acting like a child. What if your drug counseling position at the Marysville school district was no longer funded by taxpayers but went to volunteers instead? Think that is fair? Instead of just sniping, and providing misinformation about others, and me on this site, you have a chance to offer an actual opinion that goes beyond childish attacks.
It's interesting, like John L stated that as budgets have been slashed, that the parks are turning to other avenues to raise revenue. Whether it's putting more pressure on groups like non-profits that do fundraising, or trying to get volunteers to do what were paid positions. But, I must say, if volunteering is just meant for some to get a free night in the woods, so 10 of their buddies can have a big bonfire and say "this campsite is clean", leaving the campsite dirtier than when they arrived, then I think that system might be a little broken. I'd much rather have paid trail crews, and backcountry rangers that take the work seriously and provide much better services.
I always took you to be one that was cruel to animals, Quillen... Considering that the few that commented here are either retired from the park service, or don't work for the park service, you may want to rethink your claims. I don't think they have much of a stake in the Olympics or at Cumberland Seashore.
It sounds like what is happening at Cumberland NS is that it's going from a paid government position to a paid private contractor position. They decided that taking visitors by vehicle to a more seculded part of the beach can be handled by a guide service instead. Those that supply the service would still be compensated as it's a business venture, and obviously so will the park in such a situation, since they would get a cut from the contract. Many national parks around the world are ran that way, especially in South America and Africa.
I'm not a huge fan of guide services, but can understand why some visitors may prefer those services.
It is if someone is willing to do it for $11 an hour, $7.00 an hour or even free.
No apology necessary. It just sounded as if you were suggesting those costs (selection, training, supervision) made volunteers as costly as paid employees and thus there was no net cost benefit. The reality is that those costs are comparable and thus it is the pay vs non-pay that is the primary differential.