Why I Fight For National Parks
It’s a summer day, the kind that’s sticky and sweaty. I’m talking to a group of three families about racism in the Civil War, and as I recite facts about the US Colored Troops, I see one of the young boys in the group peering around me, past my legs. I turn to see whatever he’s seeing and am brought face to face with a baby deer. He was so small despite his long legs that he didn’t even come up to my waist, and he was all alone. Living in rural Tennessee, I’m no stranger to deer, but I’ve never been so close to a live one without it getting scared away and certainly never a baby like this one.
This is just one of many incredible sights I saw during my summer working for the National Parks Service as a volunteer park ranger at Stones River National Battlefield. What causes a young college-aged woman to decide to spend the summer checking herself for ticks, listening to the same rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic on repeat all day every day, and wearing a uniform clearly tailored with a man in mind?
To understand, you have to understand what my childhood was like. When I was in kindergarten, my dad homeschooled me but probably not the kind of homeschool you’re probably picturing. My dad’s version of homeschooling was learning by doing and incorporating the environment around you and making it educational. This meant that subjects like environmental science and history were taught by travelling the US and going from national park to national park. Sometimes I joke that I spent more of my childhood in cramped cars and hotel rooms than I ever did at home in Tennessee, but it really wasn’t a joke. It was an immeasurable advantage to my education, because once I started going to public school, I had an understanding of how the world worked that none of my classmates got in our textbooks. I was one of the only ones in my history class to know about the US’s policy of interning people of Japanese heritage during World War Two, and I already had an understanding of political theory from meeting former President Jimmy Carter. Can you imagine what the world would be like if every kid had the privilege I did?
Now, if you’ve never been to a national park, there is one crucial thing you need to know- the true beauty of the parks isn’t just the escape to nature, the brilliant sunsets, and majesty of rock formations that have stood the test of time. The true beauty of national parks is that they are open to the public, free to visit, and accessible. They are one of the last places where you can go to learn without having to spend a dime, and therefore are a major asset in the fight to close achievement gaps between people from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Additionally, despite the common misconception that nature and technology are always at odds, the truth is that in the digital age, learning through national parks has never been more accessible. Today, dozens of national parks across the US have made their educational Junior Ranger programs available on the internet for those who don’t have the income to go traipsing across America like my dad once did. Not only that, but technology is making it easier for parks to diversify, translating programs into multiple languages for non-English speakers and providing new guides for visitors with hearing or vision loss.
That’s why when I was searching for a summer internship as an undergrad, I decided to put in my application to spend the break at Stones River National Battlefield, returning to the park I had visited in primary school, only this time I was grown up and ready to give a new generation of learners the experience I was given.
Today, I feel like a lot of people have a misconception about environmental activism where they assume that saving national parks means that there are a bunch of vegans somewhere chaining themselves to trees, but I think about environmental activism in the context of social justice. When corporations and politicians attack national parks, I don’t think about them chopping down trees, I think of the wonder on that little boy’s face when he saw the deer that day on the battlefield. I think of the joy I saw in a girl with holes in her shoes when I gave her something shiny and new in the form of a Junior Ranger badge. Those politicians aren’t just attacking our earth, they’re attacking our future in its simplest and purest form.
And although I don’t work as a volunteer park ranger anymore, I was raised in parks, and I’ll never forget the debt I owe them, and that’s why I’ll never stop fighting for them.
—
This post was created by an amazing GREEN ZINE volunteer contributor, and opinions expressed may not represent the views of Greenpeace. If you are interested in volunteering as a GREEN ZINE contributor, visit this link.
