1. How "America's Best Idea" went Global
Transcript
[INTRODUCTION, WITH MUSIC]: Park Science Celebrates is a podcast of Park Science magazine that highlights the milestones and contributions to science made by parks and programs of the National Park Service.
KASS: Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Park Science Celebrates! podcast. I'm your host, Kass Bissmeyer, with my co-host, Cortney Cjesfjeld. Hey, Cortney.
CORTNEY: Hey, Kass. Okay so today we have someone really special on the podcast, who started out in the Peace Corps and has helped to build a really unique function for the National Park Service. So we're happy to have John Putnam from the International Affairs Office. We're going to hear about some significant contributions their office has made for science through collaboration. KASS: So welcome, John. Thanks so much for agreeing on our Park Science podcast here. Can you kick us off by just telling us a little bit about you?
JOHN: Sure, thanks, Kass, and thanks for inviting me for this podcast. So I've been with the Park Services International Affairs Office for more than 20 years now. It's gone by quickly, but it's been a really fun ride. I'd grown up a lover of the outdoors but also lived overseas as a teenager and so always had those two interests. And through good luck, find my way to the Park Services International Affairs Office after serving as a ranger and a peace volunteer overseas. And this ended up being like really the perfect match for my for my interest.
KASS: That's so exciting, John. I just love that the National Park Service has an International Affairs Office. It has to be one of the coolest jobs in the entire agency. Can you describe your program for us? What is it that the International Affairs Office does?
JOHN: Well, the Park Service has been involved internationally, well, since even before there was a Park Service, you know, with Yellowstone being the world's first national park, you know. The rest of the world quickly took notice and became obviously a global movement. But even at the very creation of the Park Service in 1916, you know, Stephen Mather, the first director, was told by the Secretary of the Interior at the time that he should be following events overseas, with the idea being that the Park Service could learn from what other countries.
And so particularly after World War II, when this global park movement really took off in a big way, Park Service was just being inundated with requests for assistance and for advice on how to either set up a park system or a new national park unit. And so Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall in 1962, six years ago in June, the first World Parks Congress in Seattle, he announced to the world that the Park Service was creating this Office of International Affairs to facilitate these kind of exchanges and learning from our international partners and sharing our successes and mistakes.
You know, one thing, we're unique, really, we and Canada are the only park agencies I know of which bring together both natural and cultural heritage under one organization. Most other national parks are under, you know, a ministry of environment, and cultural sites typically under, you know, ministry of culture, and they're very separate. But in the U.S. and again in Canada, we bring them together. And the World Heritage Convention likewise was the first international instrument to see that both nature and culture are really closely linked and need to be protected by one instrument.
CORTNEY: Thanks, John, that's really interesting to learn about the early origins of kind of this global park movement, really fascinating. Remind us today what we are celebrating. Provide a brief description of your program's milestone, what it's about?
JOHN: Well, I think the idea was right from the beginning, of course, this was created in the Kennedy Administration, our office was, and it was the same time the Peace Corps, of course, was established. There was this, I think, the general sense at in throughout the U.S. government that we need to be very involved around the globe. And like the peace corps, I think, that was a big part of it, that we should be sharing the lessons learned in places like Yellowstone, Yosemite, you know, with our international partners. And you know with countries that were maybe just starting their own park agencies. But I think even from very early on we saw this was a two-way street, that, you know, the Park Service in the U.S. had as much to benefit from this kind of international exchange as we had to share.
You know, some of the things that, you know, we've learned from our international colleagues over the decades now include sort of iconic parts of the Park Service. At Great Smoky Mountains now you know they're known for the All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, where they're trying to inventory and record essentially every living thing within the boundaries the borders of the park. But this was an idea that didn't start in the U.S. or Great Smokies. It was really an idea that started in Costa Rica. The Park Service took note of that and adopted this concept and brought it back to the U.S.
A lot of our large mammal research protocols were learned by exchanging ideas with the South African national park agency. You know to this day we bring back good ideas from our international colleagues back to the Park Service, whether through study tours, international workshops, staff exchanges, that kind of thing. Just another really neat example that I was involved with that promoted an exchange between Glacier Bay and a park called Francisco Coloane in Chilean Patagonia. It's an amazing place which is in many ways almost a mirror image of Glacier Bay: these deep fjords, glaciers, a lot of sea life, healthy population of humpback whales.
They were concerned at this park in Chile with the potential of ship strikes on these whales, this is through the Straits of Magellan, very high, a lot of ship traffic going through there. And of course the Glacier Bay, we have a lot of experience with the cruise ships coming in there. And so the Park Service at Glacier Bay has developed protocols for both monitoring the whale population in the bay, their movements, and for predicting where they will be, and helping them determine what the ships, the cruise ships routes, will be through the park to minimize any impacts on whales.
And so our expert, our ecologist from Glacier Bay spent six months in Chile bringing this knowledge to their park system and helped them develop a very similar protocol and helping you know minimize the risk of injury or death to this park's whale population. But at the same time, he got a lot of interesting new ideas to bring back to Glacier Bay, so again, it was a great example of a two-way street.
CORTNEY: That's wonderful, John. What an amazing example of collaboration, you know. What is your program or park’s, you know, contribution to science? You've already provided a few very specific examples, but maybe think about it in a more holistic way.
JOHN: Sure, so again, we have a very small office, the International Affairs Office. It’s just six people these days, and so we are not, I mean, many of us have some background in science, But we're not the scientists, the science experts. But our job really is more like matchmakers. We'll get a request from an international counterpart or from a U.S. embassy or other third party looking for a technical advice assistance from the Park Service. And then our job is to try to identify where, if that expertise exists in the Park Service, where it is and see if we can then use that to help our international partners. And so when we, if we find that, you know, what's either in some cases, the more extreme cases, like the six month, you know, exchange, where the ecologists from Glacier Bay actually spend all that time at Francisco Coalane. But more typically, it's two-week technical assistance project, or maybe it's a workshop that either we organize in the U.S. or our international colleagues have organized. And we’ll send the right expert to that, to that country.
Sometimes it's more basic than that. We got a request a while ago from the peace corps in Paraguay in South America. They were trying to develop a wildlife monitoring project in and around Paraguay’s protected areas and with their peace corps volunteers working with community members and park managers to do this. But they didn't have the wildlife cameras, and they reached out to us. And as luck had it, Park Service had a lot of surplus cameras that we managed to connect, you know, these surplus cameras, which are still perfectly good for what Paraguay was looking for. Got them to Paraguay. They developed wildlife monitoring project.
And it was so cool about six months or so later, they started sending us these great photos of ocelots and jaguars and other animals that they didn't even know were there until they set up these cameras. So you know there's all kinds of things we get involved with and again you know we're not experts but our job is to find where that expertise lies within the service.
KASS: I just love this, John, just thinking about how much, not only are we helping but we're also learning along the way. And certainly, 60 years of that, I'm sure there's lots of stories that we can tell. Looking ahead, what's, you know, what's happening now that you're really enthusiastic about and of course we're hoping you can talk to the science angle, as we're the Park Science magazine. So what's happening now that you're enthusiastic about?
JOHN: Well there's just so many things going on around the globe in conservation in protected area management that I think the U.S and the Park Service really stands to benefit by you know deeper engagement. These are things like how do we integrate traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous knowledge with I guess you call it western science. And this is an area where you know a lot of countries have done a lot more than the Park Service has done, the U.S. Park Service has done. And I think we would stand to benefit by you know really visiting these places, learning how they've set up these types of programs.
Places even as close as Canada, but Australia and New Zealand, have really become leaders in this topic, and I think the Park Service would benefit by engaging with them more deeply. But also things like, we're familiar of course with America the Beautiful, which is part of this larger global initiative, the 30 by 30 to protect 30 percent of the globe's terrestrial and marine areas by 2030. But there's a lot of science behind that, which area should be prioritized, how do we define “conserved.”
And so there is a global you know there's a global movement looking at this. Park Service in the U.S., you know at a larger level, I think, could, would benefit by engaging in these conversations about how do we think about this here at home by learning what you know other countries and the global community at large are doing. The other thing that really gets me excited is migratory connectivity. We in the U.S., I grew up, you know, with these field guides to birds that showed their range in the U.S., and then the rest of the world didn't exist, apparently, you know. I so I knew where they were from May to September, but then they just disappeared. But you know, our, the way we're looking this has changed radically, and now we know that whether it's migratory birds, marine life, sea turtles, they are really global travelers, we want to be able to enjoy them in U.S. national parks, we need to be thinking about what they call full life-cycle conservation. And we need to need to be thinking about where they are when they're not in a U.S. national park, when they're not in the U.S. and what are their conservation needs outside of that.
And so migratory connectivity is one way to get at that to understand you know where are the golden eagles from Denali going when they leave the park? And where are the sea turtles from Dry Tortugas going, when, after they've laid their eggs and they moved on somewhere else, and the birds, you know, going to places that are protected or not protected. And with that knowledge, I think then the Park Service could start figuring out ways to prioritize. We obviously, we have a very limited resources for international work, but with this knowledge we could start prioritizing where we want to focus international work. But also I think just make the case that much stronger why we need to be involved internationally. Because we'll see it's not just a shared species but an actual shared population or even a shared individual moving from one of our parks to these locations outside the U.S. So I'm really excited about, as technology increases, the Park Service hopefully doing a lot more to understand these connections.
CORTNEY: Wow, John, that's wonderful. You know, I first of all, I really liked the concept of deeper engagement. I think that's really important and exciting, but really the discussion that we just had about migratory connectivity is a great segue to our next question, which is how are you tackling oncoming issues with science?
JOHN: Well again, I mean our issue is always that where we in international affairs are not necessarily experts but we look to our expertise in the Park Service. And so I think the most important thing from the international perspective is to make sure that our experts are in regular communication with the experts around the globe. And you know, one of the vehicles for facilitating this is the world commission on protected areas or WCPA, which is a volunteer network under the IUCN. And they include things like climate change and conservation, or connectivity conservation.
And unfortunately, for one reason another, you know, a lot of our Park Service colleagues are either not aware of these expert groups or are not involved. And you know one thing I think our office would like to do is find ways to really increase Park Service involvement in some of these expert groups. You know these issues are not unique to the U.S. Park Service or to the U.S. Every country around the globe are facing very similar challenges, so it just makes sense for us to be not trying to reinvent the wheel but learning from others’ successes and failures. And hopefully, and then in the U.S., bringing that expertise back and focusing on those successes and improving our own conservation outcomes.
KASS: John, you gave us a couple of little sneak peeks of things that are on the horizon as far as your work in science, especially around migratory species and America the Beautiful and the forthcoming conservation atlas. Is there anything else that you can get us excited about as far as a little sneak peek what the International Affairs Office has coming up in the next few years as you make your way past 60 years and into, you know, your next decade here?
JOHN: Well I guess one thing I'd just like to also just remind folks that we've been talking I think almost exclusively about sort of natural resources and natural heritage conservation but of course so much of what the Park Service does and cultural heritage and cultural resources protection and preservation as well I think that's just another area where you know we hope to do a lot more in. I mean, one neat example, it's not necessarily science, but it's related the whole issue of adobe construction preservation. This is an area where the U.S. and the Park Service really was losing expertise. And through a program in cooperation with Mexico maybe 10, 15 years ago, they started a regular workshop where Park Service and Mexican experts would get together and spend a week learning about instruct, maintain, preserve adobe structures. And this is bringing back this expertise to the Park Service so we can better protect our own sites. And there are many examples like that you know throughout the Park Service where you know we don't have all the answers. Sometimes it's our international partners who are really there to help us do our job better.
KASS: One follow-up question to that, John, I, this might be a personal interest of mine, but I'm sure our listeners will be excited too. I'm wondering, are there any new potential international peace parks or any new potential sister park relationships in development that are on the horizon that we can kind of look forward to supporting or following the development of?
JOHN: So we are hopefully going to be signing a new agreement between the Park Service and Mexico’s INAH, which is their national institute of history and anthropology. It's basically sort of the cultural heritage side of conservation. We've had these agreements in the past, but it expired a few years ago, and so we hope that'll be renewed or the new ones signed in the next few months.
We do have a few sister parks in the pipeline. I don't want to get out ahead of them, but I think stay tuned; in the next month or so, we should have an announcement on at least one with I'll say it's a country in South America. We've got a lot of other, there's always a lot of interest in developing these kind of agreements, but of course one of our jobs is to make sure that it's something that we can really live up to. There's a lot of excitement about these, but we want to make sure that once an agreement is signed that there's actually the wherewithal to actually implement some of the things that we've been discussing. So the two examples I've talked about there's a lot to get excited about so stay tuned I guess I can say.
CORTNEY: Thanks, John. That's very exciting and wonderful to hear about all of these collaboration with Mexico with the adobe construction, really exciting. Our next question is, it's a fun one, if you could partner with anyone or any organization in our vast global community to help move your work forward in science, who would it be?
JOHN: Oh boy, that is a tough one. There are so many, there's so many partners. I already mentioned the World Commission on Protected Areas, I think. That's the, I guess that's the low-hanging fruit you know. If we could get more Park Service engagement with some of those expert groups in the WCPA, I think that would be a major success. Many other international entities where I think the Park Service could benefit by being more involved, you know. Unfortunately the U.S. is right now not a member of UNESCO. But they do have some programs that we're still involved with, including the World Heritage Convention, which is a standalone convention, and I think our site manager would benefit a lot by engaging more with them and with other site managers around the globe who are facing similar you know science issues and research issues.
Biosphere reserve advisory region program is another voluntary program under UNESCO which is all about linking conservation with sustainable development and looking at ways to promote both. We in the Park Service have been leading a revival of that program in the last couple of years. Boy there are just so many others out there. I think the main thing is once you start as a Park Service employee, sort of dipping your toes into the water of this international work, you realize how much there is to gain by talking with your colleagues and counterparts from around the world and realizing that they're sharing so many of the same challenges that that we do in the U.S. and the Park Service, and a lot of them have some very good ideas that we haven't thought of and we can try them here in the U.S.
KASS: Well gosh, John, this has been a really exciting interview as far as learning more about International Affairs Office as well as what you all are celebrating this year. Certainly on behalf of Cortney and myself and the rest of our Park Science editorial board, we really appreciate your continuity and service. That certainly has to be a part of the success of the International Affairs Office is having year-long service, be instrumental in helping to lead the way there. Is there anything that we might have missed for our listeners today that you might like to add before we close out?
JOHN: Oh boy, I mean I guess just one thing to keep in mind you know when folks are traveling and if Americans are traveling overseas and if you visit a national park or world heritage site, I would just say remember this is an idea that you know it didn't start in the U.S. certainly was strongly influenced by the U.S. And you know, take some real pride in that. And this is one of the areas where the U.S. where America, Americans have had a really important and positive global influence.
It's one of those things, that this is a great story, the story of the U.S. and leadership in international conservation and specifically the Park Service leadership in international conservation. Learn about this story and really be proud, because it's something that we all in the Park Service, we all as Americans have had you know an incredible legacy around the globe. Well congratulations on your milestone thanks again for making time for us.
JOHN: Thank you both. It's been fun.
[CONCLUSION, with MUSIC]: This has been Park Science Celebrates, a podcast of Park Science magazine.
"America's best idea" is also one of our most influential exports! International Cooperation Specialist Jon Putnam talks about the National Park Service's global connections in science on the 60th anniversary of the agency's Office of International Affairs. Hosted by Kass Bissmeyer and Cortney Gjesfjeld. More information: https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1955/index.htm. A production of Park Science magazine, Summer 2022 issue (June 22, 2022), https://www.nps.gov/subjects/parkscience.