National Park Service Youth Conservation Grant: Ames-Based Traveling Conservation Corps Vegetation Team- HTLN

This agreement is intended to engage youth and assist with long-term management of the cultural and historic landscape in 15 parks across the Midwestern U.S. The Landscape Initiative, a cooperative effort between the National Park Service (NPS) and National Register of Historic Places, recognizes that landscapes are an integral part of the visitor and educational experience. This investment in maintaining these landscapes avoids higher levels of future out-year maintenance expenditures. Cultural landscapes, including those in a number of parks covered in this project, also provide local economic development opportunities related to hay leases, crop production, grazing, and occasionally salvage logging. The actions supported in this agreement control problematic plants, including federally-listed noxious weeds and other invasive plants. Without these investments, parks are subject to fines and litigation under local, state, and federal noxious weed laws.

In the course of this work, the agreement engages youth in natural resource management within National Parks. NPS strongly encourages parks to facilitate the involvement of youth in experiencing and caring for parks as the next generation of NPS employees and citizens that will steward these national places. In addition, NPS recognizes the potential of parks to serve as centers for education, job-training, and other formative experiences for the citizenry. While parks offer many opportunities to achieve this goal, the potential to interact with nature, learn about natural systems and the attending scientific disciplines, and work in challenging outdoor environments – all within parks – is an unparalleled opportunity. Parks also need the care that youth can provide. Many of the plant communities and habitats within parks require human intervention that is labor-intensive. For example, many “natural” areas within parks require planting, prescribed burning, mowing, and the control of problematic plants. These projects, which we broadly characterize as vegetation management, provide excellent service-learning opportunities for youth within parks.

To achieve these goals, we intend to work directly with Conservation Corps Minnesota & Iowa to identify candidates best able to benefit from this experience. These candidates will work as a partner with NPS staff to undertake vegetation management practices. Conservation Corps Minnesota & Iowa is an expert in managing youth conservation programs, while the NPS serves as the expert on providing experiences and projects for the youth (ages 18-24). Based on previous experience, we can provide a high quality experience and effective project delivery by locating four youth at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. The 4-person crew will work closely with the Heartland Network’s inventory and monitoring program and exotic plant management team.

The public purposes of the project are to: 1) introduce youth to natural resource jobs and, for some, mentor them in that direction, 2) allow youth to actively participate in managing national parks, 3) provide an opportunity to develop work and leadership skills in a challenging outdoor environment, and 4) improve the condition of plant communities and habitats within parks.  The program will work with 12-24 youth, ages 18-26,  and provides training in outdoor conservation work, as well as job skills and teamwork opportunities with in national parks.  NPS staff serve as coaches, mentors, and partners in helping these youth to understand potential career tracks within the NPS and other conservation organizations.  The experience will provide highly relevant job skills for other resource management jobs in state and federal land managing agencies.