There are three elements of the NPS mission that require adequate field staff: preservation, protection and providing for public enjoyment.

Preservation of core park resources gets more difficult every year. Population pressures, invasions of exotics and noxious plants, poaching of everything from cacti to bear gallbladders to fossils, fragmentation of critical habitats, deterioration of prehistoric and historic structures, over use of developed areas and resources; the list of threats to NPS resources is almost endless as we enter the 21st century.

Protection challenges increase with every new sport, most new technologies, with pollutants emitted many miles away, and increases in visitation and resulting shifts in park uses. Already the NPS protects more museum collection objects than the Smithsonian, but they are spread out over the entire country; protects more historic structures than a medium-sized city without the commensurate service and code professionals; and protects more species of worldwide concern than America's largest wildlife and floral parks with far fewer controls on their environments or specialists to manage them. All this, while providing protection for many icons of the American culture. Despite staff shortages we continue to be called upon to contribute staff to national anti-terrorism assignments.

More visitors enjoy and gain spiritual renewal from visits to national parks than visit Disney's theme parks. The challenge to make those visits enjoyable and meaningful requires expertise in every natural, cultural and social science discipline plus others, yet Servicewide training programs are almost completely absent.

To support and manage these core programs, the National Park Service lacks key elements. It has almost no social science program despite rapid change in everything from demographics to public recreation needs to compliance with NPS-specific laws on the books since 1978. It has fewer resources to dedicate to training and employee development than companies that are only marginal, and far less planning capacity. Today's planning, compliance, contracting and project management requirements keep much of the existing permanent staff indoors at desks and computers rather than delivering services to the resources and visitors.

At the most basic level, the NPS needs a modern, dynamic ranger corps, capable of delivering services to the high standards set by the NPS and other professional organizations in resource and use management.

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