MARTINEZ, CALIF. — It used to be that to run the National Park Service, the director in Washington would simply open the front gates on a system that was intended to protect treasured landscapes, preserve history, and serve as a refuge for wildlife and a salve for visitors seeking the peace of wild places.
In contemporary times, however, the job of overseeing John Muir's "cathedrals of nature" requires presiding over fights of partisanship, science, religion and the appropriate telling of the American story.
For Jon Jarvis, the newly named director of the National Park Service, the future of the 391-unit system promises similar controversy.
Jarvis will have to implement a new law that allows loaded guns in parks and resolve the ongoing debate about snowmobiles in Yellowstone. He will need to reconcile the conflicting park missions of preservation and recreation, while trying to protect parks from the damaging effects of climate change. And he faces a battered workforce demoralized by neglect and a crushing maintenance backlog.
So why does Jarvis, a biologist who's spent more than 30 years in the agency -- the last seven as the park service's Oakland-based regional director -- tap his toes with excitement about the job he begins today?
"It's a convergence, an incredibly great moment in time," Jarvis said in his first interview since being confirmed by the Senate. Sitting at a picnic table in a grove of pecan trees at the John Muir National Historic Site, he laid out why he believes the parks are on the brink of a rejuvenation, beginning with the six-part Ken Burns documentary that just aired on PBS.
Called "America's Best Idea," the series fleshes out the personalities and titanic clashes that created the park service, and offers a majestic tour of the parks. The agency, which has been looking forward to the series for 10 years, hopes Burns' documentary will make parks irresistible to Americans.
"Burns gives us the history," Jarvis said. "This is the legacy that has been provided to the American people, to the world. It begs the question: So what now?"
Jarvis also cited the park service's centennial celebration in 2016, and the accompanying array of fundraising and private-sector partnerships, as an opportunity for the parks -- famously stodgy and slow to embrace technology -- to turn a corner.
