More praise has been voiced for the selection of Charles F. Sams III, a Native American with deep experience in the natural resource and conservation management fields, as the next director of the National Park Service.
Sams' nomination was announced Wednesday by the Biden administration, with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland calling him "an incredible asset as we work to conserve and protect our national parks to make them more accessible for everyone."
Haaland is the first Native American to serve as Interior secretary, and Sams, an enrolled member, Cayuse and Walla Walla, of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, would become the first to head the Park Service if confirmed by the Senate.
"Mr. Sams has an extensive record working in natural resource and conservation management," said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. "We look forward to learning more about his priorities for the National Park System and working with him to ensure that the National Park Service has the support and funding to fulfill its mission to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations."
At the Mountain Pact, a coalition of local elected officials in more than 80 Western mountain communities from Aspen, Colorado, to Hood River, Oregon, with outdoor recreation-based economies, Executive Director Anna Peterson hailed the administration's choice.
"We haven't had a parks chief since 2017, and it's disgraceful that in the over 105 year Park Service history, it is yet to be led by a Native American," said Peterson. "We call on the U.S. Senate to quickly confirm Chuck Sams III for this leadership position.”
Comments
this is why they chose him, they don't want the age old lifer nps employee to get to the top and follow the culture of the service. He is an outsider, yes, but that gives him an advantage in my opinion, he is able to approach the job from a bottom up view, rather than dogmatically maintaining the status quo. He is also native, which means that he is part of a tradition of land stewardship that goes back thousands of years, much before any national park service or even the country existed. I agree that he is less experienced than is usual for this, but we have had no one for the last 5 years, and someone is better than no one. Also he worked on many comittees relating to environmental conservation as well as racial justice, these are the nps priorities at the moment, like it or not. He IS spectacularly equipped for this if you look into his bio, albeit at a smaller scale. It is about time we deferred some of the power of the nps away from career politicians and dynastic elites. I have a feeling you are underestimating him because he is a native american, which to that I say shame on you, and I would look into the nps's mission statement more thouroughly. I don't know what you mean by never experienced this type of work, because we are talking the exact same thing but for a smaller scale. It is always a jump to ap[point a new direcctor, but this time what we were doing was clearly not working, with 22 billion dollars in deferred maintenence, lack of staff, and influx of so many tourists due to covid