Parks Stewardship Forum

The cover art, masthead, and table of contents for the current issue of Parks Stewardship Forum.

In this "Letter from Woodstock," our columnist Rolf Diamant reviews the evolution of the term "Refoundation" in previous columns and ties it to the set of theme papers published in this issue of Parks Stewardship Forum under the title "Refoundation: Does Place-Based Conservation in America Need to Start Over?"

Our guest columnist considers the potential drawbacks and benefits of the newly created US Wildland Fire Service.

In this introduction to the theme papers in this issue of Parks Stewardship Forum, published under the title "Refoundation: Does Place-Based Conservation in America Need to Start Over?", the four theme editors review what the term "Refoundation" means, the foundation of laws and procedures currently being undermined, the reasons why that foundation has proven to be so fragile, the general outlines of the essays that follow, and plans for further essays.

The author concludes that resilience cannot be built at the agency level, not when Congress abdicates its role to check the executive and the highest judiciary tips the balance towards another “co-equal” branch of government. If we accept that only through broad public support can our federal stewardship agencies continue their missions, it follows that the bedrock of refoundation should be in deepening the sense of value of conservation to and within the American people. 

People who advocate for America's public lands and waters, and the managing agencies themselves, must directly support the development of critical thinking skills and civics literacy among the general public in order to bolster a well-functioning democracy — upon which these protected places depend. Three actions are proposed: revive and expand civic engagement, justify interpretation in areas under attack by the current administration, and defend and promote the essentialness of public lands and waters.

America’s system of public lands—its national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, seashores, and cultural sites—represents one of the great democratic achievements in human history. Much of this achievement has rested on federal stewardship of national resources. But the recent political moment has revealed with brutal clarity that any system concentrated in a single federal institution is only as secure as the administration that controls it and interprets its laws. This essay proposes alternatives to managing the national parks using an unfolding paradigm of resilient diversity. The core argument is ecological in its logic: resilient systems do not concentrate their life-support functions in one organism. Neither should the stewardship of America’s heritage.

The editors invited two leaders from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Tracy
Farrell, director of IUCN North America, and Tim Badman, IUCN’s director of protected, conserved and
heritage areas, to reflect on the connection of US and international perspectives on Refoundation. Their
correspondence is shared here.

This paper examines the structural, political, and ecological challenges undermining effective ocean conservation in the United States, from fragmented governance and underfunding to policy instability and weakened scientific capacity. Drawing on global science and domestic experience, it outlines a framework for strengthening place-based protections through improved coordination, accountability, climate resilience, and community and Tribal co-stewardship. It argues that durable, science-based, and inclusive approaches are essential to sustain ocean ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

My response to refounding is rooted in my experience as a forest supervisor and line officer—someone who worked in the trenches for 40 years. I dealt firsthand with the daunting challenges of coping with external and internal demands, and at times, dysfunction in the Forest Service. The agency had, and still has, things that work, and others that do not, which is not unusual for a federal agency.  The administration has decided to approach the government’s reorganization with a chainsaw. The United States Forest Service is in crisis as a result.  It is looking to me like a major rebuild will be needed.  My questions: What matters?  What should be brought forward, what needs to change, how should it be done, and who should do this?

The essay will describe the emergence of several landscape-scale conservation initiatives in such locations as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, Colorado Plateau, and the California Desert, where national parks and other federally protected areas anchor such efforts. It will then explore the legal and policy basis for such initiatives as well as suggestions to further legitimize this next frontier in nature conservation.

Tribal co‑management in place‑based conservation needs a new approach. Even if opportunities to reset major environmental and cultural preservation laws arise, piecemeal incorporation of Tribal stewardship into a single law or agency will not be sufficient. An overarching legislative framework is needed to integrate consistent and effective Tribal co‑management into the future of our public lands.

Recent political assaults on natural resource management, scientific integrity, and historical memory by the United States’ current administration have exposed some of the brittle foundations of “America’s best idea” within place‑based conservation. Incremental fixes and a return to the status quo will not suffice to save our nation’s parks and protected areas (PPAs). What is needed is a deliberate refoundation, or establishing and building something anew after substantial disruption, of legal authorities, institutional design, and political coalitions so that beloved PPAs are co-governed with shared authority, durable legal protections, and reliable funding. This essay argues that co‑governance and co‑management can and should be the cornerstone of that refoundation, but only if they are paired with clear legal reforms, redesigned institutions, and a pragmatic political strategy.

This essay argues that the future of place‑based conservation in the United States depends on re‑centering Indigenous stewardship as a governing framework rather than treating it as an exception to federal land management. Drawing on Indigenous epistemologies, federal Indian law, and contemporary examples of Tribal co‑management, it reframes current public land instability, notably during the Trump administration, as a predictable outcome of conservation systems rooted in control rather than responsibility. Tribal co‑management offers a practical, bipartisan pathway forward that strengthens ecosystems, restores accountability, and reconnects Tribal Nations to their homelands.

Two sets of concerns have driven my professional life for 30 years: one has had to do with the history of the national
parks, and the other revolves around graduate education in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, the crisis
in employment for PhDs in those fields, and the need for radical reform of systems in academia. Here, I’d like to weave these threads together to imagine what a robust future for cultural and historical engagement and lifelong learning with public lands and the national parks might look like, and how reforms and better collaboration with a re-thought world of academic humanities might help bring that future about. The vision involves making fundamental reforms in graduate
education that could prepare a new generation of flexible, collaborative cultural and interpretive professionals for parks-related work, and then committing to employing them to rebuild and expand the educational and enrichment reach of our national parks.

Through a series of case studies, this article will explore how methods and insights from varied humanities disciplines (History, Anthropology, Literature, Music, and Gender Studies) can inform both the management of public lands and the development of enduring relationships with diverse partner organizations amid new and ongoing challenges to budgets and staffing. The article will conclude with the authors' reflections on how the lessons from the case studies might be applied in the future.

National Park Service Director’s Order 100 (DO-100), issued December 20, 2016, and rescinded in August 2017, acknowledged that the National Park Service (NPS), as it embarked on its second century, was facing a world of increasing complexity and “continuous change.” DO-100 focuses on four areas to provide NPS with a policy framework to meet its resource stewardship responsibilities in the context of these challenges: (1) increased integration of natural and cultural resource programs to support an interdisciplinary approach to resource stewardship; (2) emphasis on resilience and connectivity by collaborative management at land/seascape levels; (3) application of the “precautionary principle” in responding to threats to resources; and (4) adaptive management to provide flexibility in responding to “continuous change.” This essay focuses on DO-100’s emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach to resource management, with the understanding that adaptive management, the precautionary principle, and ecosystem management are all dependent on the availability of the most complete data. It traces the evolution of interdisciplinary stewardship in NPS and makes a series of recommendations for incorporating it into any future ‘refounding’ discussions involving NPS and other protected areas.

The 250th birthday of the United States has stimulated a great amount of discussion and debate regarding the founding ideals of our nation and the extent to which it has (and often has not) lived up to those ideals over its history. Despite acknowledging our nation’s shortcomings, there has been broad (if not quite so universal anymore) agreement that it is those ideals which define us and continue to serve as a guiding star and a measuring stick for progress toward a more perfect union. I see the US National Park Service (NPS) in a similar light—the agency’s organic act, subsequent legislation, management policies, and official mission statement and values have together formed an organization with one of the most noble missions (or set of ideals) of any in the world, including a specific call to work internationally. Much like the US as a whole, the NPS mission and ideals are now challenged by an administration that has frequently shown itself to be at best lukewarm in supporting fundamental American and NPS values. More than most government agencies, NPS and the United States are inextricably linked in the world’s eyes: much as NPS has served to enhance the American brand, the perception of the United States internationally impacts the extent to which NPS can be viewed as a global leader. I believe that the current crisis, which has led to numerous initiatives to reimagine the future of conservation at home and abroad, could ultimately bring NPS closer to its highest ideals than ever before.

Since January 20, 2025, federal parks, historic sites, and other conservation areas have been severely harmed by the direct actions of the current administration. In countless ways, seeds for this destruction began many years ago, and were ultimately made crystal clear in Project 2025 (this administration’s 2024 campaign blueprint for unraveling the federal government that has played out over the past nearly two years). This essay identifies some of the clear harms to the National Park Service (NPS) and identifies several strategies that can be explored to rebuild, strengthen, and provide greater organizational resiliency, so that any future similar assault on NPS can be prevented. These strategies and other ideas, such as those identified in this edition of Parks Stewardship Forum, need to be analyzed and a smart, integrated approach needs to be pursued aggressively because the threats are not going away anytime soon.

In 1983, when Wallace Stegner proclaimed that national parks were America’s best idea, he was responding to two basic themes then running through American culture and politics. First, he wanted to capture in one phrase his immense pride in and gratitude for a nation that had made and sustained its commitment to protecting public lands in perpetuity for the benefit, enjoyment, and inspiration of the public. Second, it was Stegner as environmental advocate who wanted to put the legislative and the executive branches of government on notice about the bad budgets and policies emanating from both that threatened to undermine the well-being of these uniquely American places. For giving us that phrase, that energy at that time, we owe Wallace Stegner a tremendous debt of thanks. And it is with respect for the author’s words and his defense of national parks that I suggest it’s now high time to retire the “best idea” concept from the public lands lexicon. With national parks under existential threat the preservation and conservation communities need the broadest, most diverse, and most engaged constituency we can muster for the defense of our parks and public lands. The parks as "best idea" ideology makes assumptions about how much people should innately care about national parks, and those assumptions have created an affinity gap between traditional park users and advocates and the new audiences that should be much more engaged in park use and protection. That gap makes it harder for us to "win" on critical park issues such as budgeting, staffing, and policy development and implementation.

Recent actions by the current administration have proven that the current structure supporting the systems of federal public lands and waters is far more easily bypassed and undermined than ever before imagined. The effects on the management of the agencies involved—their highly committed workforce decimated and despondent—and on the lands, waters, and air themselves, which seemingly had been well protected, are vivid and shockingly apparent. The foundation is now crumbling and becoming largely ineffective, the result of a Unitary Executive and a politically complicit Congress that care mostly about power, money, and personal aggrandizement. A Refoundation of our national aspirations regarding our environment, coupled with a return to a full, honest reckoning with our richly varied history, is critically needed. And Refoundation is an opportunity. An opportunity to reflect seriously on what we value most, what experience has taught us, what today’s political and judicial chaos means, what future climate and environmental disruption means. And then, in turn, what foundations of environmental protection and historic preservation are needed for the future.

A look back at the United States’ outsize influence on global conservation reveals why the latest funding cuts should come as no surprise.

The Trump administration’s cuts to biodiversity funding have imperiled species, habitats, and the people who defend both. Now the world seeks a new way forward.

With over 16.5 million visitors annually, the Blue Ridge Parkway showcases scenic mountain views along its 469-mile length and is the gateway to many unique cultural attractions. To maintain the scenic views and to reduce the possibility of development negatively impacting the quality and beauty of these viewsheds, organizations including the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, through initiatives such as Blue Ridge Rising, have partnered with the National Park Service, local communities, and other community organizations to establish a baseline qualitative assessment for all viewsheds along the Blue Ridge Parkway. With support from the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the Clemson University Institute for Parks in partnership with the George Wright Society and the School of Natural Resources at the University of Tennessee has coordinated the 2026 Gary E. Everhardt Park Break Program to assist in this effort. The Gary E. Everhardt Park Break Program is a fully supported leadership and service-learning program for graduate students. This year eight Gary E. Everhardt Park Break Fellows, representing eight unique universities, traveled to the Blue Ridge Parkway for one week to conduct baseline qualitative assessments of 59 viewsheds between milepost 202 and milepost 317.5. These qualitative viewshed assessments will assist the Blue Ridge Parkway and partners in identifying the most unique and highest priority viewsheds for future voluntary conservation. In addition, the qualitative descriptions and photographs of each viewshed may be used to develop site narratives and promotional materials of underutilized destinations to assist in distributing visitation more evenly across the Blue Ridge Parkway.

An excerpt from the book "The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park."

The growing integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) across disciplines presents new opportunities for innovation, yet its adoption in the field of conservation education remains limited. Part of the lack of adoption stems from a potential trust deficit with the use of AI. We applied a novel AI design framework to the development of conservation-oriented signage at McCroskey State Park in Idaho to explore how AI can support communication and engagement in under-resourced natural areas. Through a human interaction-facilitated process using Retrieval Augmented Generation, we examined the trust local organizations representatives had in the use of AI technologies pre- and post-signage creation. Results indicated increased rational trust and reduced lack of affinitive trust (intimidation), highlighting the importance of transparency and oversight in conservation content creation. By showcasing this process that employed AI in conservation messaging, we offer budget-constrained conservation agencies a practical approach to leverage emerging technologies for environmental education and outreach, while engendering greater trust in new technologies.

The federal government has been undergoing dramatic cuts since President Trump took office in January 2025, with ripple effects through partners in state and local government, academia, and the non-profit and private sectors. These changes are affecting all aspects of government, including the place-based conservation roles of agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), US Fish and Wildlife Service, and US Forest Service. This represents an enormous loss of institutional knowledge and capacity. The George Wright Society recognizes that government service, non-profit civil society, and unfettered academic inquiry are foundational to the well-being of the American nation. While the current administration’s policy and budgetary decisions are designed to undermine these values, the Society continues to support them in our focal area—parks, protected/conserved areas, cultural sites, and other forms of place-based conservation. As part of that response, the Society has launched a new program, the RISE Declarations Project, to support conservation colleagues who have recently lost their jobs due to actions by the current administration: people we refer to as Recent Involuntarily Separated Employees (RISEs). What follows is a RISE Declaration: a statement that lets RISEs summarize in their own words the most important aspects of their career in place-based conservation, along with lessons learned. For a complete introduction to the RISE Declarations Project, please go to https://doi.org/10.5070/P5.62005.

The federal government has been undergoing dramatic cuts since President Trump took office in January 2025, with ripple effects through partners in state and local government, academia, and the non-profit and private sectors. These changes are affecting all aspects of government, including the place-based conservation roles of agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), US Fish and Wildlife Service, and US Forest Service. This represents an enormous loss of institutional knowledge and capacity. The George Wright Society recognizes that government service, non-profit civil society, and unfettered academic inquiry are foundational to the well-being of the American nation. While the current administration’s policy and budgetary decisions are designed to undermine these values, the Society continues to support them in our focal area—parks, protected/conserved areas, cultural sites, and other forms of place-based conservation. As part of that response, the Society has launched a new program, the RISE Declarations Project, to support conservation colleagues who have recently lost their jobs due to actions by the current administration: people we refer to as Recent Involuntarily Separated Employees (RISEs). What follows is a RISE Declaration: a statement that lets RISEs summarize in their own words the most important aspects of their career in place-based conservation, along with lessons learned. For a complete introduction to the RISE Declarations Project, please go to https://doi.org/10.5070/P5.62005.

A poem in the "Verse in Place" section of Parks Stewardship Forum.