A new coalition of civil rights, environmental justice, and conservation groups called on President Obama Thursday to further prioritize a vision of inclusion and increase the racial and ethnic diversity of visitors to America’s national parks and public lands in the next century of conservation.
“The president should use the [National Park Service] Centennial to call for a more inclusive approach to conservation of our public lands that reflects the faces of our country; respects different cultures and takes responsibility for actively engaging all people,” said Mark Masaoka, Policy Director of the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council, in a statement. The coalition’s calls and recommendations were announced Thursday at a joint press conference with House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA).
As America’s National Park System enters its second century, its viability and relevance will depend not only on the National Park Service’s (NPS) ability to combat challenges such as a changing climate, increased developmental pressures, attacks from the far right, and decreased federal funding, but also on how well Americans connect to their national parks. With U.S. demographics rapidly changing — the Census Bureau predicts that by 2043 the U.S. will have no racial or ethnic majority — the NPS hasn’t kept up in reflecting America’s diverse population or engaging new generations to visit and explore the historic, cultural, and environmental resources available through the national parks.
“The face of America is rapidly changing; yet our public lands do not reflect this demographic and ethnic diversity. We have a moral responsibility to fix this disconnect now,” said Carolyn Finney, author of Black Faces, White Spaces, and a coalition participant. “We must head into the next 100 years with a strong commitment to a more inclusive approach to public lands that puts a priority on engaging all Americans and protecting cultural and natural landscapes that tell our country’s complex history.”
In the most recent comprehensive study on visitation by the Park Service, only 22 percent of visitors identified as non-white. A 2015 study by the Outdoor Foundation also found that 73 percent of Americans who participated in outdoor activities are white. And an analysis by the Center for American Progress in 2014 found that less than a quarter of all national parks and monuments had a primary focus on communities of color, women, or other traditionally underrepresented groups.
The coalition, made up of over 30 groups including the Hispanic Access Foundation, Outdoor Afro, Green Latinos, and the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council, has put forth a change.org petition calling on Obama to issue an Executive Order to deal with these problems. The group also released dozens of policy recommendations, including ideas to encourage land management agencies to recruit and hire staff with more diverse backgrounds, provide free recreation passes to members of federally recognized tribes, increase funding for the Historic Preservation fund to identify aspects of the American story that are absent from the parks, and find ways to increase diverse stakeholder engagement.
Obama’s National Monuments Have Been An Economic Boon For Local EconomiesClimate CREDIT: Dylan Petrohilos The national monuments that President Obama has created or expanded are generating…thinkprogress.orgPresident Obama has already has already made progress in making parks and public lands more inclusive. Notably, he has protected 23 national monuments, several of which are dedicated to Native American, Latino, African American, Asian American and women’s stories and histories. In his National Parks Week Proclamation earlier this month, he stated his commitment to “helping all Americans discover the outdoors and interact with our unique and magical landscapes.” And the “Every Kid in a Park” initiative, in which every fourth grader gets a pass to visit national parks for free, has also been extremely successful in ensuring many children — regardless of family circumstance — can visit parks for free.
The coalition asks that Obama build on the accomplishments he has already made. Their calls for action mirror a letter, led by Reps. Grijalva and Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and signed by 34 other Democrats, sent to the National Park Service last week urging the agency to put a focus on diversity, inclusion, and access as it prepares for its 100th anniversary.
“The Centennial … is a celebration of our legacy of conservation and is also a time to honor the diverse culture and history of these diverse communities that make up this wonderful country of ours,” said Rep. Grijalva at the press conference. “Unfortunately, many families … don’t see their culture, their history, reflected and presented in their public parks and public lands. We need to leverage the centennial into something beyond a celebration. We need to leverage it into the next 100 years to be a legacy of inclusion, diversity, and representative of the mosaic that makes this country great.”
Jenny Rowland is the Research and Advocacy Associate for the Public Lands Project at Center for American Progress. You can follow her on Twitter @jennyhrowland