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
Although this particular article mentions a couple of programs of limited scope, Owen speaks wisdom.
He echoes, "Proceed with extreme caution."
Boy you got that right, EC. Have you ever seen NPS employees squirm so much over a topic? Man, they might have just priced themselves out of the market. It is a traditional NPS response. . These NPS folks have a working script. And it is worn out. As in to death. Of course they wouldn't use volunteers when they can squander more tax dollars from the hardworking American Public.
Volunteers are a great resource particularily in trail building. The advantages are many. First they want to be there as opposed being assigned to xyz duty which they may or may not enjoy. The duties are usually specific enough that they know what they are signing up for ahead of time. They "can" be highly skilled and knowlegable, wanting to give back to something that they enjoy or see value in. If they don't perform or are not up to the task it is easy to dismis them without fear of litigation or having to deal with a union protecting the least capable in the workforce. Of course there are a few drawbacks but utilized correctly they are a great resource. Yes it makes some uncomfortable as would I if someone was willing to do my job for free.
What will happen is that it will work in a lackluster and dysfunctional situation for a year or two, and then the services will be so poor that the management will go back to paid staff. I could just see the kids right now, "well, I was going to go spend 8 hours doing heavy handed labor-intensive work clearing large trees that toppled like dominos on a trail, but I think i'll just skip that and go play xbox, since i'm not getting paid to do it. That was a lot of work for no reward, last week. All I got was a lousy sandwich, and a motivational speech about how awesome we are". I can understand if it's being applied to a college class, or to an internship, because there is an investment in that person's future.
Usually volunteers are either retirees that have a lot of time on their hands, are very young people looking to get their foot in the door, or middle aged types that want some volunteer work so they can exert sort Author-i-tay..
Could you imagine the whining of some on here if they said all disciplinarian types at taxpayer funded school districts should be handled by volunteers, or simply the childrens parents? I'm sure there would be no such whining if such a situation occurred.
I've done my share of contracting work in the private sector for most of my career, and those potential clients that say "I don't have any money, but if you build this for me for free, i'll make sure to give you great word-of-mouth and get you more business" were always the ones you showed the door. Just walk-a-way.
Would EC take millionaires around to show awesome mountain mansions for free, with no potential to make any bread for his efforts? And in the case that they liked what they saw, and moved their titles around, he just got a simple pat on the head for his time and efforts instead of compensation for his time, and knowledge. Or would he just walk-a-way from that situation?
When you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that gets hit yelps the loudest. In this instance it is the itinerant NPS carney crowd.
Too bad you declined the fundraising challenge that was offered to you, Gary. It would be a great opportunity for you to support the NPS financially instead of just drawing from the agency and justifying your employment with the NPS and denigrating volunteers.
Perhaps you would be interested in volunteering for the Smokies yourself instead? As a volunteer, I can hook you up with the volunteer coordinator. We sure could use some more hands in the backcountry.
Um, let's play nice, folks. Otherwise we'll shut 'er down.
Umm I don't work for the NPS. So, let me understand your limited logic. When you realize you can't win an argument, just challenge them to engage in violence? Funny... but that's kind of the game of a sociopath that realizes he has little to stand on in his ideology. I do support the NPS financially. I do it in other ways that are much more impressive, and can create a much greater reach..