An Interview at Mount Rainier

I recently took a little day trip up to Mount Rainier National Park to see what I could find out about what research they are doing and if any of it was spurred by climate change. I had planned on interviewing some people in the park but I did not arrange them in advance. Judging from my experiences in other parks I felt it was best to have the element of surprise working for me as the responses I get are usually a little more candid and open than any I have gotten from scheduled-in-advance interviews. Here is my story.

The trip itself was fabulous. There was an unprecedented heat wave in Seattle and I was excited to get into the mountains where the temperatures were cooler and the air smelled sweet with fir. I made it in record time from my home in Ballard and pulled into the park in less than two hours armed with my annual pass.

As the ranger at the entrance station checked my I.D. I questioned him as to the whereabouts of their resource management department. He seemed a little stunned and dumbfounded and confessed to me that he did not know where it was but he would call his boss and ask. As the cars began stacking up behind me, I waited patiently while he obtained the requested information from the other end of a telephone line. While I waited I wondered to myself why a park employee did not know where one of the most important departments in the park was located. I wondered if he even knew that the park had a resource department. I also wondered if he might be a new employee that had only been there for a few weeks and was still getting acquainted with everything. The sound of him returning to the window pulled me out of my contemplation whereupon he relayed, without conviction, the whereabouts of the department and bid me good day. I pondered this encounter while thankfully pulling out of the entrance station just in time to be ahead of a rental motor home the size of an ocean liner.

The road quickly narrowed as it wound through massive old growth Douglas-fir (pseudotsuga menziesii) dwarfing even the gigantic rented motor home behind me. I quickly forgot about my encounter at the entrance station as I became mesmerized by my surroundings and rolling all the windows down, I breathed in the sweet fir essence I had been longing for. A mile or so into my journey I passed a couple of people in orange safety vests, clipboards in hand, bent over looking at plants along the roadside. As I wondered what they were doing I came to my first of many construction zones. Road repairs were being made to the stretch of road from the Ashford entrance to Longmire. As I sat in line waiting my turn through the construction area I thought to myself “So far, so good! Research and much needed road repairs and I have only gotten 4 miles into the park.” After a few more delays for road repairs, I rolled into the parking lot at Longmire to search for the resource management department. The landmarks and instructions the entrance station ranger had given me were proving to be hard to follow and after searching for 45 minutes I decided to bag it and head on up to Paradise and surprise some unsuspecting personnel there.

As I came around the last turn before arriving at Paradise I was stunned to see a large area of scarred land on my left. It is always strange to see any construction in a national park and I felt myself beginning to recoil from such a blemish on the pristine scenery. It is like taking a sharpie to the Mona Lisa to adorn her with a mustache. Since it was a weekday and I am an early riser the parking lot at Paradise was only about half way full. Normally one has to make a few laps scavenging like a turkey vulture watching to spot a family walking to their car to leave, then wait while they pack everyone in, all the while ignoring the growing line of irritated and jealous people behind you, just to score your much coveted place in the lot. I got a prime parking spot, gathered my notebook and camera and made my way over to the Paradise Lodge to see if I could find an unsuspecting soul to engage in conversation. No luck. But I did pause for a moment to snap some shots of the inside of the lodge.


My next stop was the Jackson Visitor’s center, a short walk from the Lodge. On my way along the path I took note of the areas that were roped off for vegetation recovery. Many visitors to Paradise often trample the alpine meadows trying to get those perfect shot of the flowers in bloom with the mountain standing majestic in the background. This is not a new addition to the scenery at Paradise. I have never made a visit to this place without seeing these areas roped off from foot traffic with signage stating the purpose of their partitions. What I did find both slightly amusing and more irritating was a family of five completely ignoring the ropes and signage to hastily make a short-cut to their car, all the while trampling sensitive vegetation. I wondered what they thought as they climbed over the ropes and skidded down the hillside to their car. For a brief moment, I even considered pointing out to them the signage and giving a little speech about fragile ecosystems. I decided that my intentions would most likely be ill received and decided to continue on to the visitor’s center.

Once again I was compelled to stop and take in the grandeur of Mount Rainier and noticed a new addition to the scenery. Some trail repairs had been made and the new addition of a stair case was placed along the Skyline trail. The stairs were nothing remarkable however inscribed in them was the words of John Muir expressing his feelings about the park from a visit long ago.

After pausing for more pictures I finally made it to the visitor’s center. I could hardly contain my excitement at discovering it was a new facility that had only recently opened to the public. This explained the rubble pile I had noticed on my way in, which was the remnants of the old visitor’s center, something for which I had scolded myself a little in not realizing sooner. As I walked into the visitor’s center I was greeted by a whiteboard giving me the weather forecast and informing me of the ranger led programs scheduled for the day. I was ecstatic to see “3:15-Climate Change”. I reigned in my excitement, barely containing the urge to sprint over to the desk to talk to the rangers and continued my exploration of the new visitor’s center, dropping a few dollars into the donation bucket along the way. After watching a short movie about the park in their little theater, which I am pleased to report, was at capacity, I finally made my way to the desk to begin my inquiry. This is what I learned.

There were two rangers working the information desk that day and I was quickly befriended by one of them, a gentleman I will call Mr. Ranger out of respect for his privacy. After introductions, Mr. Ranger and I began by talking a little about the new visitor’s center. He informed me that the new steep A frame center was much more energy efficient and climate friendly than the old circular one had been using hundreds of gallons less fuel than the old design. He also told me that by taking down the old visitor’s center they were afforded the opportunity to study artifacts found under the old site, there was even a display to show some of the things they had unearthed during the construction process. Sadly, I did not get a picture of the display but it is something worth checking out on your next visit. Next I asked Mr. Ranger to tell me all he knew about any research or programs being conducted in the park regarding climate change and resources. He informed me that the park does studies on light pollution, noise pollution, and air pollution and that the air quality is monitored and can be seen in a display in the visitors center. Mr. Ranger also informed me that at 3:15 every day, as the white board located in the entrance explained, there was a film about climate change and national parks with two people from Mount Rainier making appearances in the video. He confided to me that the film was sometimes difficult to introduce to the public because a lot of the public does not believe that climate change is happening. He also gave me the names of the two resource personnel from the video and suggested I contact them for further information regarding their studies, very helpful indeed. He stated that he was not aware of much of the research being conducted within the park but did say that those two orange safety vest clad people I spotted on the way in were most likely studying the vegetation near waterways to determine soil qualities and characteristics as well as plant migration statistics. We ended our conversation by reminiscing about all the parks we have had the privilege of visiting and working in and I filled my notebook with his recommendations for future visits to parks I had yet to discover. I headed upstairs to check out more displays and sat for an hour watching climbers make their way up and down from Camp Muir as a thunder storm rolled in.

What did I learn? From my previous impromptu interviews at other parks and from Mr. Ranger I have confirmed my suspicions that information is not shared among park personnel, either within the park or among other park units. This lack of information sharing is troublesome to me. Perhaps my mental model suggests that park rangers at an information desk should have all the answers to the questions the general public may ask regarding the park and its resources. Maybe I am expecting too much. In defense of all the rangers I spoke with regarding these topics I must say that I do understand that the NPS probably does not have appropriate funds to train all of their employees to respond to public inquiry about climate change. What everyone I spoke with was able to give to me is a brochure entitled Climate Change in National Parks published by the National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior. This small, yet informative brochure explains that some of the parks are involved in “Climate Friendly Parks” workshops to do what they can to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by using solar and wind energy, fuel cells, electric and hybrid cars, and in areas of high visitation using mass public transit. The brochure also gives links to places where the public can learn more about climate change, but ironically fails to provide the link for the Climate Friendly Parks website. The link can be found here: http://www.nps.gov/climatefriendlyparks/index.html.

At this link one can peruse various presentations (mostly PPT) that were held in various “Climate Friendly” parks. In my exploration of this site I found a publication entitled Climate Change Response also published by the National Park Service and U.S. Department of the Interior which on page 7 states: “While efforts to date are significant –the NPS is not yet positioned to assess the affects of climate change and prescribe management actions that are suitable for parks.”
What does this mean? Are they not yet in a position due to insufficient funding, lack of personnel, lack of understanding, is it because their resource and research system is fragmented and no one can agree on its direction, or could it be that some of the personnel within the parks are those who do not believe climate change is happening. Diving deeper into the website I found a list of parks that are on the Climate Friendly Parks (CFP) roster. Of the 391 National Parks only 49 are listed as members on the CFP page. 22 of these parks have yet to apply to become “Climate Friendly” and 15 are members, meaning that they have filed an application, developed a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventory in their park, and completed a GHG action plan. The remaining 12 parks are still in this process.

It is clear that there are personnel within the National Park Service that are aware of climate change and its impacts on the park system. There are also those who are devoted and determined to do what they can to help reduce GHG emissions in the parks and educate park personnel, enabling them to engage with the public about such issues. It warms my heart to know that these people are out there, however more must be done, much more. Ultimately what I learned from this interview is that I have many more questions than answers, that I need to continue my research and efforts to track down sometimes hidden information, and that support and funding for the National Park Service is very much needed in order to understand the impacts of climate change and find ways to prepare for and respond to it.

DRCC River festival and farmers' market

I attended the DRCC River Festival last Saturday, and learned a lot from putting the survey and display board into use with folks who attended. The survey questions were designed to help us connect to participants, learn more about them and see if they are interested in becoming involved with the cleanup efforts in some way. So we had three questions:

1. Please tell us - are you a resident, business owner, or otherwise use the river in some fashion (whether that's fishing or otherwise)?

2. What are your hopes for the future of the Duwamish river?

3. Would you like to be involved in helping to protect/save the river?

Each time I design surveys like this one I'm reminded to really keep questions short and simple. I could usually get people to answer question #1 easily. For the second and third questions I noticed that most people didn't go into lots of detail other than responding "a clean river", and I had to let go of my tendencies to pressure folks to sign up to help DRCC. I tried paraphrasing question #3 to explain that we are planning to have further conversations with people who live and own businesses in the area about implementing the Vision plan, and that this is also a way that they could be involved, if they didn't show interest in helping with the cleanup. I also think some attendees may have thought we are asking them to actually help clean up the pollution in the river itself. Overall I talked with two young teens, a couple of residents, one former landlord who resides on Beacon Hill, a woman who works at a social service agency in the area, an indigenous woman who lives in Auburn and several political candidates for office.

I also had a less than successful conversation with a guy staffing the "People for Puget Sound" booth regarding the information they have about what kinds of fish and other sealife animals it is risky to eat. I tried asking him two questions: what can we say to people to whom fish and seafood is central to their diets, and are they offering any information about alternatives such as the nearest safe places that people can go fishing in? His responses were short and limited to saying that it's dangerous to consume any fish and seafood caught from the river, and shrugging his shoulders at the notion of offering alternatives. I am guessing that the way I phrased my questions made him feel defensive and/or just didn't connect to his perspective at all. A bit later when I talked to an indigenous woman, I noticed my internalized feelings of trying to get her to "sign up" to be involved with DRCC in some way (such as with the Vision plan implementation conversations) coming up again. This conversation was great practice for me to learn to just listen more genuinely and let go of my tendencies to nudge people to "take action". At the end of our conversation, although she refused to sign up for any DRCC activities she thanked me for listening to her stories of her late husband who was a fisherman in the area.

Yesterday I attended the new South Park Farmers' Market in the morning and helped do outreach for DRCC. We shared booth/table space with SeaMar and I connected with three people: Steve Gisel, co-manager of the farmers' market; Ninfa Quiroz, staff person at SeaMar; and Amaranta Sandys, a local multimedia artist who makes art thru use of clay. Steve stated that the farmers' market has several objectives including bringing together people who haven't had much experience with U.S. business practices, encouraging people to support local businesses and learn to eat more healthy foods. He said that they are trying to obtain funding to hold the market more often than once a month, and they have a business co-op for the vendors who participate. Also he added that although the vendors' earnings might not be very "high" currently they see the participation of the vendors as successful because they're learning how to do business.

Ninfa Quiroz and I talked about her concerns regarding the diet of the Latino community. She expressed a lot of worry about the tendencies of Latinos to eat a lot of carbohydrates, fats, salt and processed foods including in tortillas and tamales. She added that there's ways that people can still enjoy their traditional foods but reduce the amount of fat and carbohydrates in preparing tortillas and tamales. She emphasized that addressing health issues such as diabetes isn't just a matter of getting people to change their diets, they have to change other habits such as increasing their level of activity and exercising regularly. She asked if I could help SeaMar do some health education, and is also interested in the information that DRCC has about the dangers of eating fish and seafood caught from the Duwamish river. She looked at a coloring book for children that is printed in English and Spanish, that teaches children about animals in the local area and said that she would like to see another one regarding the dangers of eating fish and seafood from the Duwamish river. I told Ninfa that if DRCC, SeaMar and the South Park Farmers' market could partner somehow to have conversations about food and healthy alternatives that would be great. I plan to talk further with Cari about the possibilities of doing my Change project around these areas. Although Cari and I talked briefly about what my Change project could be before she left, this was before I had conversed with Ninfa in detail.

I also enjoyed talking with Amaranth, she makes pottery, clay magnets, pendants, beads and earrings with her own cultural style. For instance she has some magnets and earrings that are brightly colored skulls in honor of "Dia de los Muertos", the Mexican "Day of the Dead" celebration. Amaranth stated that she helped emcee at the River Festival last week. She is also connected to local artists' groups.

Joyce

First Small Group Discussion

I've posted a summary of a small group discussion on the topic of environment and spirituality I led at a Neo-Pagan gathering at the end of July over on my environment & spirit blog. Here's most of it:

I chose the small group discussion model out of what I learned in my Reflective Practicum coursework, that social change comes from people talking, looking at their lives, finding frustrations, and noticing gaps – and then people will want to change. I was hoping to plant some seeds that might lead to noticing gaps and help a movements towards social change in this area of environment and spirituality – but I was also really curious as to what a group of people attending a Pagan conference might have to say about their sense of connection to, or being part of, nature.

In addition to my understanding that Paganism is a nature religion, I know that Pagans also tend to believe that the Divine is immanent – i.e., right here, in us, in rocks and trees and rivers, in critters and clouds, here – as opposed to transcendent, or far away, distant, in heaven, in the sky, beyond the boundaries of the earth. In transcendence, the Divine is not part of the Earth; in immanence, the Divine is the Earth, and all that is on the Earth. I was curious to see if the current of immanence would mean that practicing Pagans had an understanding of humans and nature as being one and the same.

My first question to the group was whether they felt like they were part of nature or separate from it, and why. Now, in a group of 15 Pagans, you have at least 20 perspectives, so I certainly did not get the same response from everyone. I did hear some people describe nature as something they looked for but did not find in their urban setting – that a dandelion growing through a crack in the sidewalk was a small glimmer of nature in an otherwise natureless-setting. This reflects an American cultural pattern of a clear separation between humans and nature (Stewart and Bennett, 1991, p. 115).

On the other hand, I also heard people who described themselves as “a wave, not a particle” and “absolutely part of nature – my life is part of the web of life.” One person relayed that a feeling of separateness from nature was a motivation for them to strive for something different. We spent some time musing on a plastic bottle – how it was made from parts of the earth, how it was a feat of human intelligence and design, how it was part of our cycle now. How, we wondered, did the “sacredness of crappy plastic” fit in to everything?

My second question was how they defined themselves spiritually and how that influenced their sense of connection to nature. Some felt it was their experience of nature, or being in nature (note: use of the word “in,” not “part of”), that drives their spirituality. One person commented that it was an eye-opener for them when they learned that the word “religion” in other parts of the world means how you live every day of your life, because that hadn’t been her experience of religion up to that point. Many agreed that a sense of awareness, seeing little details or “Goddess moments,” recognizing that in nature you never see function without beauty or beauty without function, fed their spirituality.

At the end of our hour together, I felt that we had had a very good discussion and raised some good points with areas to explore further, but I’m not sure (yet) that I planted seeds that will lead to social change. I hope the conversation will continue – perhaps on this blog?

Stewart, E. & M. Bennett (1991). American cultural patterns: A cross-cultural perspective. Boston: Intercultural Press.

Animated Water

It has finally rained. After about three months of record dryness, wet stuff fell from the sky. Just as the sun seems to spur joyful growth from the plants, rain has a similar effect. After the rains my stunted sage plant gleefully put on new growth. My squash is now over 6 feet long.

Water is the life blood of the garden. It brings to life not only the plants but the millions of microbes and insect life in the soil. How the water falls and flows through the soil is of maximum importance to a healthy garden. One of my garden mentors taught me that the only way to know how to properly wet my garden is to get wet with it. During a rain there is a lot to learn by standing in it, watching how it falls, where the rivulets of water snake along the ground, where it pools and where it is sucked into the soil.

However in a food garden, rain is not always enough and irrigation becomes necessary. Yet the state of our water system is dire. Not only do we waste a shameful amount of water, but we poison it as well. There are predictions that our oil wars will soon turn to water wars. Even here in the Northwest where our water is allegedly the cleanest in the country, it is processed with chemicals and “enriched” with fluoride. Our ground water and sewage systems are overwhelmed with pesticides, cleaners, petroleum products and pharmaceuticals. Overcome with toxins and pollutants, filtered of it's natural minerals and beneficial bacterial, our water has, as scientist Joan S. Davis would put it, lost it's wisdom. We drink this water and we eat it through our food.

Much of what I am learning in this study is how to garden with a sacred intention. Whether it be weeding, interacting with pests or watering, focusing with an good intention can elevate the self and the act, imbibing it with creative energy. However I hear rumors that this intention has a healing capacity. Masaru Emoto is somewhat infamously known for his work with water crystals. In one experiment Emoto exposed water to degrading or affirming words, froze the water and took microscopic photographs of the crystals that form as it freezes. The photographs Emoto produced are said to show that degrading words causes disconnected and malformed crystals, and affirming words created beautiful and intricate crystals.

Sandra Ingerman has done similar experiments to detoxify water calling the process transmutation. For the experiment a group is gathered in a ceremonial meditation with a focus on healing an intentionally toxified receptacle of water. Ingerman would test the pH of the water before and after meditation, and found that post meditation the water indicated lower levels of toxicity.

Naturally, the scientific community has issue with these experiments, and I'll admit, I'm skeptical. However, I can't deny that it makes sense. I know from experience that a positive and generous intention can have a great affect on my interaction with animals and other humans. But these physical life forms are a combination of a variety of elements, water making up more than half. 'Life is animated water' is a famous quote by scientist Vladimir Vernansky.

Why limit the healing capacity of our intentions to animate beings? And really what does it hurt to meditate while I water my garden on the life giving capacity of water, thanking the water for it's gift, and praying that the water can somehow overcome the abuse we've put it through. Regardless of whether or not it does any healing to the water, I believe it will do healing to me.

Orginally posted on growfoodfeedspirit.blogspot.com

Sink or Swim

The nature of salmon recovery spans regions, cultures, geographies, and lifestyles. Because of this diversity of interests, efforts to restore salmon have become significantly disseminated. Small organizations and site-specific interest groups sprout up when existing organizations fail to align agendas, meet requests, or expand the scope of their projects. Unwilling to give up on the mission, energies are cleaved to form an organization in order to address the specific goals that were previously unattended.

At the agency level, workgroups are delegated to focus on particular issues affiliated with salmon restoration. Since taxpayer money is funding these types of restoration projects, advisory committees are formed for each region and/or project to ensure that the funding is being effectively utilized. It is common for each watershed to have their own council and some even have satellite organizations that while still associated, work on recovery issues in adjacent communities. Spanning the Pacific Northwest, there are thousands of NGO’s, community groups, industries, and governmental organizations working on one specific goal, salmon recovery, but do it in a way that fulfills a specific niche.

This diverse approach to salmon restoration can be beneficial by allowing each community to address and design projects to best fit their restoration needs. However, this has created a vast network of efforts that are detached from one another. Adding to this fragmentation is the competitive nature of applying for federal and private funding on which many organizations rely. As a result, communication and collaboration between groups hardly exists in most regions.

Maintaining status quo at this point is proving to be ineffective on the larger scale as the salmon populations continue to decline and the movement struggles to gain a political foothold. In order to truly create a strong and vibrant movement, organizations need to find a way to unite. This collaborative process can help eliminate redundant and overlapping projects which will then free up resources that can be redirected to areas of need. Personal agendas and small town politics inherent in this effort need to be reminded of the fundamental goal to restore salmon to our waterways. Organizations need to take the initiative to reach out to one another and start brainstorming ways to communicate, share ideas, and work together.

The timing is critical and the work is unprecedented to unify such an expansive and divergent movement, but the longer we wait the more we will lose. Uniting these energies will be advantageous by creating a lean, streamline, and efficient movement mimicking the very nature of the species it is fighting for.

Science In Our National Parks

When national parks were first established there was little understanding of the resources they contained. Park boundaries often failed to include the complete ecosystems and often did not encompass enough land to support critical habitats. Over the years this lack of understanding has led to resource management issues, loss of resources and in some cases small problems have turned into large ones.
It is unquestionable that the mandate of 1916 that established the National Park Service and protected irreplaceable examples of our nation’s ecological, cultural and historic heritage, but the current science and research program of the national parks is fragmented and lacks the direction that it needs in order to research, understand and preserve these national treasures. The current science program in the park service also has to share its funding with the resource management division. This collective management approach often discounts or reduces the importance of one or the other of these very valuable activities, research and management.
The current Park Service research and resource management practice is divided into three levels as follows:
I. In the Washington office
II. In 10 regional offices
III. In individual park units
The Washington office develops policies and standards, sets priorities, and coordinates research programs. The 10 regional offices conduct and coordinate most of the research that take place within each of the individual park units leaving us with not one plan but ten different plans, each one different in every way. Through contracts and agreements some parks arrange to have research conducted with parties outside of the park system often including universities or independent researchers, while in other parks most of the research is conducted by park personnel. The National Park Service maintains a smaller research staff than any other federal agency making it almost impossible for park personnel to conduct the necessary research.

In the early 1960’s, when the first assessments of the NPS science programs were being conducted, two reports gave significant recommendations regarding the current science program. Both the Leopold report (named after A. Starker Leopold) and the Robbins report (named after William J. Robbins) recommended strengthening the science program. The Robbins report of 1963 states:

Research by the National Park Service has lacked continuity, coordination, and depth. It has been marked by expediency rather than long-term considerations. It has in general lacked direction, has been fragmented between divisions and branches, has been applied piecemeal, has suffered because of a failure to recognize the distinctions between research and administrative decision-making, and has failed to ensure the implementation of the results of research in operational management…It is inconceivable that property so unique and valuable as the national parks, used by such a large number of people, and regarded internationally as one of the finest examples of our national spirit, should not be provided adequately with competent research scientists…as elementary insurance for the preservation and best use of the parks.

Although this report clearly stated the inadequacies found in the current science program there was little done to address the recommendations made in the report. Later in the 1970’s the parks were still plagued with the problems of inadequate funding and argument over who would direct such work. Again in 1977 another report, the Allen and Leopold report, recommended that the NPS give science and research more say in planning and policy making, and again little action was taken. Groups such as the National Parks Conservation Association and The Conservation Foundation published more reports criticizing the management plan and drew widespread public attention on the threats to the parks. Then in 1980, under congressional pressure the NPS conducted an extensive and comprehensive assessment of the parks and their threats. This report documented serious, extensive problems in the parks and recommended these actions: conduct a comprehensive inventory of park resources; establish accurate baseline data and conduct monitoring to detect changes in resources and ecosystems; focus attention on threats associated with adjacent lands; and improve the ability of park managers to quantify and document the effects of various threats. Ironically these were the same suggestions made by previous independent reviews of the parks management plan. Nine years later another report known as the Gordon report criticized the NPS for not fulfilling its obligations to the management and research of their resources. In all over a dozen major reviews over a period of 30 years had all suggested the same thing, and all met with little or no efforts to implement the recommendations.
Our parks today are faced with a myriad of threats. Often the unique qualities, attributes, and resources that led us to preserve such parks are being destroyed. They are subject to a diverse array of human influences, damage to air and water quality, noise pollution, erosion, and an array of inappropriate activities that threaten the aesthetic characteristics and jeopardize the integrity and stability of their ecosystems. For example, the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 severely damaged coastal habitats in Kenai Fjords and Katmai national parks. The extent of the damage is unknown because inadequate research, understanding, and cataloging of park species and ecosystems had not yet been conducted. These are but some examples of the importance that research and science plays in understanding our parks and their resources. It is critical to understand cause and effect relationships within our parks in order to understand if a change to that system is a natural fluctuation or if it is an unintended consequence of something else.
The concept that parks are isolated and removed from adjacent human influences is faulty. Boundaries alone will do nothing to ensure the health of our parks. We need long term monitoring, research, data collection and critical and systemic analysis of information in order to understand the threats to our parks. Our world is dynamic and ever changing, we need a plan to include science and research in our parks that is able to adapt and change with our world.
The National Parks Conservation Association’s Center for State of the Parks program was developed in 2002 to assist the parks in assessing threats to the parks and understanding their resources. They frequently conduct studies within parks to determine threats to the parks and to advocate for more funding for research. These studies are then made public and can be viewed at http://www.npca.org/stateoftheparks/reports.html. The reports and database created by these studies makes available critical information for congress and the public in order to provide up to date and accurate information needed for decision making and funding.
Since the national parks are our canaries in the coal mine and often are the first places that experience quantifiable information about environmental changes and threats they provide critical information regarding global environmental change. It is obvious that our parks have the potential to enlighten us about our natural world, yet this potential has yet to be realized and tapped. This is why it is vitally important that they develop a thorough, comprehensive, and ongoing research plan that involves NPS researchers and scientists as well as independent scientists in order to ensure its longevity and accuracy. The time has come to realize the potential that our parks have to offer for our understanding not only of the parks themselves but of our changing world and its natural processes. It stands to reason that if the National Park Service was created and charged to protect our most treasured natural resources science should play a crucial role in that process.

Works Cited:
States., United. Science and the national parks. Washington, D.C: National Academy, 1992. Print.

Improving our nations food system



In addition to reading books, doing interviews and writing reflection papers on the subject of the local food movement in North America, our group is also responsible for watching different videos where Michael Pollan (a renowned food activist) talks more deeply on the subject.

The video I watched was a Bill Moyer interview (I have posted part 2 of that interview for your viewing pleasure) I found it an excellent summarization of the many different faucets I have been learning about regarding our nations food system.

The sharp rise in heart diseases and diabetes over the passed 30 years is in direct correlation to the increases in proceeded foods intake for the average American.

Michael Pollan refers to this crises as a literal fresh food desert. There is a rise in demand for locally grown organic produce in urban areas specifically among low income and underserved communities. Many city stores offer countless processed food options and very minimal varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables. It is my opinion that this is entirely unacceptable. Having a healthy diet is an individuals choice but many families do not even have the option to eat healthy having no access to fresh food.

Luckily there is a slow food movement in the works and many farmers markets have begun accepting food stamps and there are also a demand for fresh produce to be served in schools http://www.farmtoschool.org/ hospitals http://www.worldchanging.com/local/seattle/archives/008389.html and jail http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/blogs/80days/2009/06/table-for-two-at-the-county-jail.html

Pollan encourages us to all grow a garden and to cook again he claims that we have turned cooking into a spectator sport, and if we were to spend the time that we watch cooking shows actually cooking we would find we have plenty of time to make dinner. He promotes cooking as the best way to declare your independence from the culture of fast food.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1

We have gradually lost touch with some of life’s basic pleasures. We have bought into the propaganda that this country can not feed itself without help from corn syrup. We need to work together organizing our agriculture using sustainable farming practices and not being afraid to spend and afternoon in our kitchens.