Colorado nonprofits rally to support national parks amid ‘unprecedented times’

Over the past eight years heading up the Rocky Mountain Conservancy a nonprofit that exists to help Rocky Mountain National Park and nearby populace lands Estee Rivera Murdock has seen one challenge after another threaten the nation s fifth-busiest national park During her tenure as the group s executive director there have been two governing body shutdowns including one of days in that was the longest in U S history There was a global pandemic in That same year two wildfires burned simultaneously in the park Cameron Peak and East Troublesome the two largest in state history And so when describing her level of concern over the way Trump administration staff reductions and feasible budget cuts affect the -square-mile park the majority of which is wilderness she puts the confusion emanating from Washington into historical context I can say with confidence that we re in unprecedented times but I ve been saying that for quite various time Murdock commented I have been worried for a very long time due to the pressures of visitation increases and low budgets Budgets are stressed at this time but the present moment is a continuation of a long trajectory of the park needing more information and our organization being flexible to help meet those necessities The Rocky Mountain Conservancy is one of more than nonprofit groups in the National Park Friends Alliance numerous of them official partners which exist to promotion the mission of their local parks through fundraising volunteer work and advocacy Among them are Yellowstone Forever the Zion Forever Project Friends of Arches and Canyonlands the Grant Teton Association and the Mesa Verde Foundation They have existed for decades but given the current uncertainty over federal funding they are looking for more avenues to help through increased lobbying efforts additional fundraising increasing volunteer help and other strategies We re all meeting on a very regular basis stated Stephani Lyon chief of staff at the Zion Forever Project in Utah All the parks have such different necessities there isn t a one-size-fits-all cure But what are selected creative techniques and how can we share these materials to come together and work on that Founded in the Rocky Mountain Conservancy is one of the oldest organizations of its kind It has an annual budget of million with about full-time employees and approximately seasonal employees It works through the park s volunteer system and provides direct funding to hire seasonal employees Specific of the jobs it hires for include retail clerks naturalists custodians back office patronage and multiple more The so-called friends groups also lobby in Congress helping their delegations understand the increasing stress on national parks Murdock lately returned from Washington D C where she met with Colorado Reps Joe Neguse and Jeff Hurd as well as congressional staff explaining where the park stands heading into the busy summer season My comment to members of Congress was This summer is going to feel normal-ish in Rocky to the visitor because those gaps and holes have largely been plugged for the front-end visitor experience Murdock revealed But on the back end senior and mid-level year-round positions are sitting vacant for a very long time Park provision bureaucrats have deflected or ignored questions from The Denver Post about staffing levels and other matters this year Required on May for specific numbers comparing current staffing at Rocky to what it was for Memorial Day last year the park s community information officer and the National Park Utility media office provided no answers Related Articles Trump administration job cuts really worry retiring Colorado forest institution supervisor Protesters gather outside Rocky Mountain National Park to aid federal workers Murdock has certain insight though She acknowledges national parks got a small increase in the number of seasonal employees in the wake of a federal hiring freeze but problems remain The hiring freeze has a huge cumulative effect Murdock announced Yeah there are more seasonals but they are temporary short-term positions and they don t necessarily have the same level of expertise and instruction and experience that the year-round core staff and management-level staff have There s this backlog of positions that haven t been filled so you re seeing more and more people functionally doing two or three senior positions Increasing pressure on national parks did not begin with the current administration Deferred maintenance in national parks stood at more than billion through the fiscal year according to the National Park System after increasing nearly billion over the previous decade Rocky Mountain National Park s deferred maintenance backlog stands at an estimated million which includes million in road maintenance demands and million in trail maintenance That number is real Murdock declared That number is growing every day Estee Rivera Murdock heads up the Rocky Mountain Conservancy a non-profit that supports Rocky Mountain National Park with funding and volunteer work It and similar groups around the country have become more major not long ago because of funding uncertainty in Washington It s not the role of the private sector to jump in and fill these gaps but we re really focused on going deeper into our mission rather than lighter Murdock commented Provided by Rocky Mountain Conservancy The Great American Outdoors Act passed by Congress in provided billion annually for five years to alleviate the trouble It expires this year but Congress is considering an extension that has bipartisan encouragement called the America the Beautiful Act It proposes billion annually through Murdock attended the bill s introduction The Great Outdoors Act has made chosen great progress and was very bipartisan passed and signed by President Trump in the previous administration Murdock explained The issue is why do we have over million in backlogged maintenance at Rocky in the first place What do we need to do to make sure we re not needing to pass these bailout projects every couple of years to dig out of these holes How do we keep the holes from being dug in the first place making sure these places are being well-stewarded consistently Rocky Mountain National Park is consistently among the busiest of the nation s national parks Last year it placed No with million visitors Zion National Park was No at million but Lyon announced it has remained at roughly the same staffing it had years ago when annual visitation was half that Zion has a deferred maintenance backlog of million We ve seen certain reductions in force in the park and those create new challenges Lyon explained We re going to have to be creative That s why these friends groups matter now more than ever In southwestern Colorado Mesa Verde has an estimated million in deferred maintenance demands including million needed for road maintenance according to the park organization I cannot speak to any of the politics surrounding funding explained Shannon Clifford executive director of the Mesa Verde Foundation I can tell you that the national parks have inevitably needed additional funding The fundraising that we do we use to advocacy projects and programs that are specifically requested by Mesa Verde National Park I feel like we re making a little dent but we re certainly not raising millions of dollars We re a small organization with just one and a half employees Clifford added We do a lot of grant writing and specific fundraising events Meanwhile the Rocky Mountain Conservancy and other national park friends groups have seen an increase in people inquiring about opportunities to volunteer in the parks or help in other techniques It s not the role of the private sector to jump in and fill these gaps but we re really focused on going deeper into our mission rather than lighter Murdock declared We re not going to start cleaning bathrooms in the campgrounds but we re going to step in and make sure there s enough staff on the ground to work with students when they come up for their field trip that they ve been waiting for their entire life Current Rocky Mountain Conservancy efforts include funding advocacy staff for the Rocky s volunteer office funding seasonal staff for search and rescue operations buying firefighting equipment funding the park s junior ranger campaign providing staff at visitor centers and funding an oral history project That s in addition to boots-on-the-ground trail maintenance fire rehabilitation and restoration on the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome burn scars and raptor monitoring revealed Kaci Yoh the conservancy s communications director At Zion Lyon revealed she s not worried but she is concerned We re pulling tools from our tool belt from the COVID era Lyon explained We learned a lot then that can be replicated It takes all of us to care for these spaces These challenges that are being presented by the new administration it is concerning of unit But it gives us an opportunity We have to step outside of the box she continued We also have to keep pushing on our congressional delegation to fund these places This is America s greatest idea the National Park Organization We need the American people to be able to push back on the delegation in a very educated way and say Hey these places are worth funding ' Subscribe to our weekly newsletter The Adventurist to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox