In order to create positive changes in our business practices, I think the NPS must take this order and the accompanying reference manual, along with other documents that outline best business practices, and fully implement the actions that are required or recommended. Although I didn't attend the Discovery 2000 Conference, the session reports for "Accountability in the NPS: Perception vs. Reality" are an indication that I'm not alone in my thinking about changes the NPS must make to be more accountable.

Management Policies 2001 states: "Management accountability is the expectation that managers are responsible for the quality and timeliness of program performance, increasing productivity, controlling costs and mitigating the adverse aspects of agency operations, and for assuring that programs are managed with integrity and in compliance with applicable law . . . The concept of management accountability will be applied to all strategies, plans, guidance and procedures that govern programs and operations throughout the Service, including those at the park level, the program center level and the Servicewide level."

In my 15 years of working for the NPS, I've seen some successes and a few failures at implementing processes and/or systems for better management accountability.

Part of the problem is that the NPS continues to have many discussions but is slow to make decisions and implement recommendations. As we review the session reports mentioned above, what have we done with those discussions to either completely change or improve our practices?

One question that was asked and answered at Discovery 2000 was: "What must be done to demonstrate appropriate accountability as individuals and as an organization in the 21st century?"

Some of the responses were:

• Every employee must demonstrate personal responsibility and accountability to the organization, the public, future generations and the community. Likewise, the organization has responsibility and accountability to the employee to prepare them for the decision making process.
• As an organization, in the eyes of the public, we must demonstrate competence and sound decision-making methods.
• We must become a learning organization and learn from our experiences.
• The leadership of the organization must be well qualified, trained and equipped with the skills necessary to demonstrate competency and responsibility.
• We must have "consequences." We do not have a problem with accountability but with consequences. People take their responsibilities seriously but when things happen and there is no consequence, people get frustrated.

Although I hear many people complain about GPRA and say that it's just a passing fad, it is a law that supports results-oriented management. The law requires that we develop strategic plans, set performance goals and report annually on our actual performance compared to goals. As we continue to implement this legislation, we will only be accountable if our plans and goals are integrated into our budget process and our daily operations/activities. How are you accountable and helping to ensure the same for the NPS?

Interpretation

No one has stepped forward yet to commit to writing a brief, regular update about interpretation issues for this space. Please consider helping out ANPR and your colleagues by keeping them informed of important topics. We need your help - the time commitment is minimal. It doesn't take long to write 400 to 600 words every three months for this space. Please contact editor Teresa Ford, fordedit@aol.com.

Resource Management

Having returned this spring from the George Wright/Cultural Resources 2003 conference, where a record number - nearly 900 - registrants participated in a week of presented papers, panel discussions, focus group meetings and special events, I'll offer some of my favorite recollections and observations from this interdisciplinary meeting. I encourage readers to look for published papers in the forthcoming conference proceedings, but also to talk with other attendees, which included numerous superintendents and staffers from all NPS "divisions," about their impressions of these and other issues discussed.

Numerous sessions addressed natural and cultural resource management in wilderness areas, and indeed the shared viewpoints ranged across a broad spectrum. Interpretations of what's appropriate under the Wilderness Act ranged from those who would preserve prehistoric and historic resources as part of wilderness to those who suggested that long-term management objectives and tools needed to maintain cultural resources should be weighed in determining whether to include or exclude cultural sites or landscapes from wilderness proposals. Researcher Peter Landres of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute talked of his work to define and monitor "wilderness character." Landres suggested that one essential quality of wilderness is that evidence of modern human occupation and modification is substantially unnoticeable, and that managers use public input to define for each wilderness area the "line" between what's historic and what's modern.

Beyond wilderness and apropos to all parks, natural resources chief Terri Thomas and her compatriot cultural resource manager Ric Borjes from the Presidio of San Francisco in Golden Gate offered "Recommendations for Natural and Cultural Resources Reconciliation " including:

• acknowledge fundamental differences, the inherent conflict between preserving the human imprint and encouraging natural processes; also, recognize that commonly used terms, such as "restoration," convey different outcomes to cultural and natural resource specialists.
• acknowledge the historic components to a site's natural history and the natural components of a site's cultural history; she encouraged funding sources to reward projects that celebrate both-such as a restoration of endangered species habitat that also restores a historic landscape or view shed.
• Keep passions at bay and use a scientific approach to decision making.
• Understand each other's laws and policies.

National Historic Landmarks program manager Bill Bolger, from the Northeast Region, and Denver Service Center planner Denny Davies echoed this theme, saying that "preservation" is used differently in the natural and cultural resource professions, which often have diametrically opposed goals, strategies, and approaches. Natural resource programs promote ecological succession and resist or mitigate the effects of human action, while cultural resource programs typically fight succession at a historic structure, scene, or traditional cultural site to protect them from the effects of natural change. Davies called for managers to clearly define objectives and boundaries or "desired future conditions" for conserving both resources in parks. Bolger offered that competition across these lines, between divisions, and between the increasing specializations within professional disciplines, has little to do with conservation.

Plenary speaker Daniel Botkin, a noted conservation biologist, closed the conference talking of "Preserving Nature When Nature Always Changes." He commented that the 'old' idea of preserving nature was that "natural" does not include people; the 'new' idea was that "natural" is often modified by people. And that people are afraid of the precedent that might be set by admitting that some change is OK, when it doesn't mean that all change is OK. He cautioned listeners to beware how their ideology influences their science, and try different approaches to achieve goals, because we don't know what works best, and there may be no "absolute truth."

Botkin quoted Mark Twain, "I'm all for progress; it's change I can't stand." Our discomfort in confronting change-in our fields of expertise, in our changing user groups and their expectations, in the trend toward outsourcing, in the debates over stove piping and its potential effects on resource rangering-may be the dilemma we all face, as we work through the evolutions of the National Park System and its staff.

~ Sue Consolo Murphy, Yellowstone

Protection

The Traffic Stop Revisited - I pulled a vehicle over this spring to advise its driver that its taillights were inoperable. I ended up arresting him for DUI and other charges. What's more, officers from a local police department shot and killed a passenger during a traffic stop when he jumped out of the vehicle with a .357 revolver.

Two things are certain about every traffic stop: 1. We never know what we might end up dealing with; and 2. All traffic stops should be approached as being inherently dangerous. Accordingly, we should be in that mental "red zone" every time we stop a vehicle.

Like many rangers, I've made a fair number of traffic stops, and I've learned to use a few tactics - five to be precise - that help me remain in control throughout the contact. For simplicity's sake, I'll limit this commentary to "unknown risk" stops, considering that felony stops are a different subject matter entirely.

I'll discuss these five tactics in chronological order as they occur, or should occur, as the stop progresses. First off, as soon as I decide I'm going to pull a vehicle over, I radio dispatch the following transmission: "Dispatch, 414, rolling traffic." This accomplishes several things for me. One, it gives dispatch a heads-up that I'm about to call in a traffic stop, versus call in the weather or ask them to make a phone call. Second, it advises fellow rangers and other park personnel that I need radio silence to call in a law enforcement incident, which will normally be given air-time priority.

But most importantly, by calling in the vehicle description, including registration, while I'm still rolling, I afford myself a tactical advantage in the event that the tag or vehicle is reported stolen. If dispatch can provide me a stolen report prior to my actually stopping the vehicle, I'll continue to follow it as long as it takes for backup units to catch up to me, and then I'll affect a felony stop on it. This much I know for certain: If a ranger stops enough vehicles over time, one day he or she will eventually stop one that's stolen. Wouldn't it be nice to know this information prior to pulling it over? And yet, so many rangers hit those blues as soon as they pull in behind the suspect car. I've even seen some approach the vehicle before they've run the tag.

The second tactic follows the first one immediately. It's to give my specific location and direction of travel to dispatch as soon as they answer my call. My location is the very fist word I utter once dispatch advises me to "go ahead." Everything I have to tell dispatch is important, but nothing is as important as my location. What matters most is that help can get to me if I need it. Location first, every time.

Once dispatch calls me back with registration information, and as long as the tag or vehicle doesn't come back as stolen, registered to a known violent offender or other problems, I affect an "unknown risk" stop on the vehicle. It's important, of course, to call in the location of the actual stop once we're no longer rolling. At this point, I employ the third tactic, which is to use my lights - all of them. I activate my rotating and strobe lights, but I also activate my take-downs, wig-wags and spotlights, even in the daytime. Seems simple, but I've passed so many traffic stops in progress where the officer had only the rotating lights on. I look at it this way: An occupant of the stopped vehicle might try to shoot me, and that will be much more difficult for them if they're staring into a half-dozen high-powered, very bright lights versus two rotating blues. Even in the daytime.

Once I have all my lights activated, my vehicle positioned where I want it, my camera running if I have one and my equipment checked, I approach the suspect vehicle . . . on the passenger side. The element of surprise serves as an effective and important tool in many aspects of law enforcement, and this is certainly true with traffic stops. If I've aimed my lights properly (at the rear-view and side mirrors), occupants of the suspect vehicle almost never see me approach, and they almost always expect me on the driver's side. This results in my almost always achieving surprise upon initial contact with them. I have even had passengers, after calming themselves from their startled state, express to me just how surprised they were.

The passenger-side approach serves several additional purposes. If the driver does intend to shoot me - and remember, this could happen with any given driver on any given day - my chances of seeing a weapon in his/her right hand are much higher from the passenger side. Also, in most cases I will be better shielded from oncoming traffic and I'll be closer to surrounding terrain, such as woods, an embankment, buildings or rock outcroppings in the event I need to run to a concealed and covered position. Plus, I won't have to dodge oncoming traffic as I run across highway lanes. But, without a doubt, the most convincing reason to approach on the passenger side is to achieve the element of surprise on a would-be assailant.

Oftentimes the occupants of stopped vehicles are compliant and even apologetic, but it's no rare occasion for them to throw around "attitude." I usually interpret this behavior as threatening, and it's imperative that we, as the controllers of the contact, do all we can to quench such behavior before the occupants escalate the situation any higher.

This brings me to the fifth and final tactic I've found to be particularly helpful. Any time an occupant begins to act in a threatening manner toward me, I advise him or her in a professional manner that everything he or she says or does is being videotaped. The results are usually a visible de-escalation on the suspect's part. It's unbelievable how friendly, or at least how less abrasive, folks become once they've been advised that they're on tape.

I limit my use of this particular tactic to those folks I perceive as presenting threatening or disorderly behavior. In other words, I don't tell everyone they're on tape, and those I do tell, I do so with the express purpose of getting them to de-escalate. So what does a ranger do if he or she has no in-car video? That's up to the individual ranger. Our credibility as law enforcement officers is a precious privilege and we should never do anything to compromise it. But if a defense attorney attempts to undermine my credibility by advising the court that I intentionally lied to or misled his or her client, my answer will be that I felt genuinely threatened by his or her client's aggressive demeanor, and, yes, at the time, at 0130 hours, on that lonely park road, far from backup, I did tell the client he or she was on tape. And I did so for my own safety and that of the client.

To recap, on every traffic stop I make, I use five tactics that have proven effective:

• I call in vehicle information while I'm still rolling.
• My first words to dispatch once they answer me are my specific location and direction of travel.
• I light up the suspect vehicle with every light on my rig.
• I approach on the passenger side.
• If necessary, I encourage the threatening suspect(s) to de-escalate by telling them that their aggressive behavior is being taped.

Obviously there is much more to an unknown risk traffic stop than I've covered here. My intent is to share a few ideas with rangers who already know the basics of stopping vehicles. As long as you're in your mental red zone during the stop, employing these tactics will help you remain in control and increase your odds of making a potentially dangerous contact as safe as possible.

And if at some point in your career you haven't already had an unknown risk stop turn into a high risk or felony stop on a moment's notice, know this: Stop enough vehicles and some day, you will.

~ Kevin Moses, Big South Fork