National Park System: Units Managed Through Partnerships
Released: 2016-04-05T00:00:00

T he partnership parks of the National Park System are those units that the National Park Service (NPS) owns and/or manages along with one or more partners in the federal, tribal, state, local, or private sectors. The partnership parks differ from traditional units of the National Park System, in which NPS is the sole land manager. Historically, partnership parks constituted a relatively small part of the National Park System. In the past several decades, however, Congress has created a growing number of partnership parks among the system's 410 units. Of the units added to the National Park System in the Administrations of Presidents William Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, nearly half might be considered partnership parks.

This report responds to ongoing congressional interest in partnership parks, as Congress seeks to leverage limited financial resources for park management, to respond to concerns about federal land acquisition, and to create park units in "lived-in" landscapes, where natural and historical attractions are mixed with homes and businesses. It discusses several types of partnership parks:

parks with a federal partner; parks with a tribal partner; parks with a state or local government partner; parks with a private partner; and parks with a mix of landowners and management partners.

Management and Ownership of Partnership Parks

The partnership parks vary in their physical characteristics and legislative histories, but in each, NPS collaborates with outside entities to manage the land, significant portions of which may be owned by the partnering entity. Congress typically establishes the broad terms of partnerships in the enabling legislation for the unit. Details of the partnership arrangement may be worked out in cooperative agreements, memoranda of understanding, the park's general management plan, or combinations of these and other tools.

Partnership arrangements are specific to each unit and vary widely; there is no overall model that partnership parks must follow. For example, NPS may be the sole or primary manager of land that is owned by another party, such as a conservancy or land trust (as in Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas). NPS and a state or local government partner may manage side by side, with each unit of government administering land it owns within the park (as in Redwood National Park in California). In a park unit spread out over an urban or suburban area, NPS may manage visitor centers and provide overall supervision, while a variety of partners own and manage specific sites in the park (as in New Bedford Whaling National Park in Massachusetts). At other units, NPS may serve in a supervisory role only, with partners providing all of the day-to-day management, even on federally owned land (as in First Ladies National Historic Site in Ohio).

Types of Management Partners

Partnership parks may be loosely grouped by the type of management partner, whether federal, tribal, state or local, private, or a mix of several types. Table 1 gives examples of partnership parks of each type across the National Park System.

Parks with Federal Partners. Federal park partnerships occur when a park unit contains resources managed by a federal agency other than NPS. For example, NPS co-manages some national recreation areas built around reservoirs with the Bureau of Reclamation, which administers the reservoirs' water resources. Similarly, NPS works with the Fish and Wildlife Service to manage several national seashores containing wildlife refuges. Other federal park partners include the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Navy, and the Coast Guard, among others. Many of the Park Service's federal management partnerships are of long standing, dating back 40 years or more. Parks with Tribal Partners. Many national park units have a connection to Native American history and culture. In some of them, Indian tribes play a major role in ownership and/or management of the park. Along with federal partnerships, tribal partnerships are among the longest-standing types of shared land stewardship in the National Park System. Parks with State and Local Government Partners. When NPS manages a national park unit in cooperation with state or local government, some significant portion of the land is generally still owned by the state or locality. In establishing such management partnerships, Congress may aim to leverage both federal and state/local financial resources. For example, cost savings could be realized through smaller outlays for land acquisition (as each level of government owns only a portion of the unit) or through management efficiencies. By ensuring that some park land remains under state or local control, Congress may also address concerns about extending the federal estate. Parks with Private Partners. The number of parks with private ownership and/or management partners has grown in recent decades. Congress may achieve cost savings through these public-private partnerships—as, for example, when historic preservation groups provide the primary on-site staff at a historic site, allowing the Park Service to save on personnel costs. Congress may also establish private partnerships where there is controversy over federal land control. Parks with a Mix of Partners. These parks are often in urban or suburban population centers, where the park coexists with many other public and private land uses. In such areas, the Park Service has stated, "managing through agreements and partnerships is a matter of both practical necessity and philosophy." Congress may specify in these parks' establishing legislation that much of the land is to remain in nonfederal ownership. The legislation may establish a cooperative management body made up of many types of landowners and administrators. With their diverse ownership and management arrangements, some of these park s have served as sites for innovative management techniques within the Park Service.

Issues for Partnership Parks

When considering NPS management partnerships, Congress faces a number of issues. Some relate to the treatment of individual partnership sites: Is administration within or outside the National Park System most appropriate? How should financial responsibilities be shared between NPS and its partners? What issues must be resolved with respect to federal versus nonfederal land ownership? What administrative benefits and challenges might the partnership bring? More broadly, do partnership parks further the mission of the National Park Service, or does extending the agency's reach through partnerships weaken its focus on its core priorities?

Inclusion in the National Park System

In considering proposals to establish partnership areas, a basic question for Congress is whether the area should become a unit of the National Park System or whether some other arrangement (perhaps with less federal involvement) is more appropriate. On the one hand, inclusion in the park system might better ensure ongoing conservation and stewardship of the land. NPS assumes a basic financial responsibility for park system units, which may be desirable to previous land managers (although in some cases partnership terms may dictate ongoing financial participation by existing land managers). Furthermore, there is evidence that park system units benefit surrounding communities by drawing tourism to the area.

On the other hand, some in Congress are reluctant to add new units to the system, contending that the federal government's land holdings are already too large and that budgetary resources would be better used to address problems in existing parks. Existing landholders, too, may have concerns about joining the park system, fearing a loss of control over their lands. In addition, there are procedural hurdles to establishing a new unit of the National Park System. Potential units typically undergo study to determine whether they meet explicit criteria for establishment and then must win congressional approval and funding. Even if successful, this process may take many years. For such reasons, it may be more attractive to legislators to enable the Park Service to assist in other ways—for instance, through the model of a national heritage area (a type of area established by Congress that is not under federal control but receives technical and financial assistance from NPS) or through grant programs such as the Historic Preservation Fund.

NPS studies of sites for potential addition to the National Park System are required to consider "whether direct NPS management or alternative protection by other public agencies or the private sector is appropriate for the area." Beyond this broad requirement, individual legislation to authorize studies of potential park units may also contain specific directions for NPS to consider a range of protection options in addition to traditional park unit status.

Allocation of Financial Responsibilities

Both NPS and its partners may face constrained financial resources for management of a partnership park. Nonfederal partners may seek national park status with the idea of receiving an infusion of federal funds for a struggling area, while federal legislators may specify partnership arrangements in order to limit the government's financial obligations for a new unit.

In some cases, the establishing legislation for partnership units does not specify the exact breakdown of financial responsibilities between the Park Service and partnering managers. Instead, it delineates the broad functional responsibilities of each entity, and the Park Service subsequently works with partners to develop the financial details of these arrangements—for example, through cooperative agreements or memoranda of understanding. In other cases, the establishing legislation does include specific funding directions, such as requiring a 50/50 cost share between the federal government and nonfederal partners. Reflecting current federal economic constraints, some proposals have been made to create National Park System units with no federal funding.

Degree of Federal Land Ownership

Many units of the National Park System—not just the partnership units—contain parcels of land not owned by the federal government. However, Congress typically gives the Park Service authority to acquire these "inholdings" over time, with the goal that the entire unit will eventually come under Park Service management. In many partnership parks, this is not the case; instead, when establishing these parks, Congress has taken into account that land ownership by the federal government may not be feasible or desirable. In heavily populated areas, for example, lands might be prohibitively expensive to acquire, owners might not be willing to sell, and some land might be inappropriate for Park Service management because of existing natural resource degradation or uses that are not part of the NPS mission. Federal land ownership also may be opposed for economic, philosophical, or other reasons.

No statute specifies the amount of park land that must be owned by the federal government to justify creation of a national park unit. In a few cases, Congress has created a partnership park with the explicit provision that the federal government will acquire no land in the unit, or will acquire only a very small amount. More commonly, provisions for partnership units (as well as traditionally managed units) state that the federal government may acquire land, but only from willing sellers or donors. In partnership parks with little federally owned land, management plans, cooperative agreements, and/or memoranda of understanding are used to clarify partners' responsibilities and create a joint management framework in accordance with the laws governing the National Park System and the purposes for which the park was created. Still, questions may arise about whether the Park Service has adequate—or excessive—jurisdiction over these nonfederally owned or managed areas within park units.

Administrative Arrangements

Beyond funding issues and land ownership questions, partnership parks face a variety of administrative issues. Different organizational mandates may lead to conflicts or differences in focus between the Park Service and its partners. From the visitor's standpoint, partnership management may result in confusion about what is and is not a national park—for example, when both NPS and nonfederal partners contribute branding and signs to a unit. From a managerial standpoint, challenges arise as partner organizations confront the institutional culture of the Park Service, and vice versa. Several studies of park partnerships have identified partners' failure to understand each other's procedural requirements, timetables, reporting needs, and similar matters as sources of delays and frustration.

Despite administrative challenges, both the Park Service and its partners have reported successes in managing partnerships. NPS case studies have pointed to administrative benefits including cost savings, shared expertise, and innovative management ideas from private-sector partners. The Park Service has reported a growing acceptance of partnerships within the agency and in the general public. Congress may consider both administrative challenges and successes when determining whether to create new partnership parks, or in providing oversight for existing parks.

The Park Service has attempted to address administrative issues through active efforts to improve partnering skills among agency staff. The agency established a national partnership office in Washington and regional partnership coordinators around the country. A website contains partnership resources and case studies for agency staff, and the agency encourages training in partnering skills. NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis has stated that when selecting park superintendents, he ranks partnership skills "at the top of my list."

Role of Partnership Parks in Fulfilling the Park Service Mission

Do partnership parks extend the Park Service's capacity to accomplish its central missions of preservation and public enjoyment of resources, or do they draw funds and staff away from the Park Service's core needs and priorities? Members of Congress and other observers have expressed both views.

On the one hand, partnerships can enable the preservation of valuable natural, historical, and recreational resources in cases where a traditional national park is not feasible for financial or other reasons. Partnerships also may encourage a paradigm of joint citizen responsibility for the system, rather than agency control. They may bring innovative approaches needed to manage new types of parks in "living landscapes." The National Park Service Advisory Board has recommended partnership management as a way to address large-scale landscape challenges, tackle problems of invasive species control and air and water quality, and better ensure the economic viability of neighboring communities. The board stated:

The future should not be about doubling the amount of land owned by NPS; instead it should look to increasing the impact of NPS by enabling the service to do much more through affiliations and partnerships. The "old think" is park units with strict boundaries within which NPS must own, manage, maintain and operate everything. New think is "park areas" in which NPS works collaboratively with other public, private and non-profit organizations—each with a distinct role and complementary function.

On the other hand, some Members of Congress and other observers have raised the concern that partnership efforts may divert resources from the Park Service's central needs and priorities. Some in Congress contend that partnership management has served as an incentive to add new units to the National Park System that do not necessarily warrant federal protection or investment. They claim that some of these units lack the national significance of earlier national parks. Rather than seeking to create more parks that might be better managed by nonfederal interests, these observers suggest, Congress should focus NPS funding on the agency's growing maintenance backlog for its existing units, estimated at $11.93 billion for FY2015.

Despite these concerns, numerous parks with partnership management provisions have been established or proposed in recent years. Many of the proposals have included cost-sharing requirements for joint activities. Given current economic constraints, ongoing questions about federal land acquisition, and the desire to preserve resources in areas with many different existing uses, interest in partnership parks can be expected to continue.