“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”
OUR FOCUS
Although parks often seem free, they are not
Protected areas of all shapes and sizes require funding, attention, labor, and resourcing to maintain their condition. In return, they provide a host of cultural, economic, and environmental values to society. This virtuous cycle is not static, however. It can grow to an immense scale if the benefits are balanced by the appropriate level of public support. It is this Park Cycle that the Institute works to strengthen and grow.
THE CHALLENGE IS GROWING
Our parks are reaching the breaking point. Urban growth, funding shortfalls, chronic understaffing, overwhelming visitation, and climate pressures are straining our park systems’ ability to provide the benefits that Americans expect and deserve. These pressures threaten to destroy the virtuous cycle sustaining our park systems.
Communication is key
There is no single solution to ease all of the stresses faced by our protected areas. But no matter whether we are analyzing national hiring practices, spotlighting innovative collaborations, or analyzing flood models, the Institute’s focus on telling the stories about why parks matter is critical to keeping the park cycle strong.
“The composition of the workforce must better reflect the diversity and talent of America.”
Diversifying the Protected Area Workforce
The conservation workforce is neither big enough nor diverse enough to meet the needs of America's parks. 2030 is a fast approaching benchmark for critical land, water, and biodiversity policies, making the need for a larger and diversified conservation workforce more urgent than ever. The Park Institute of America is researching ways to address the staffing and diversity challenges of today so the conservation community is fully prepared for 2030 and beyond.
Augmenting Conservation Hiring
A Needs Analysis of Diversity-Focused Conservation Recruitment Practices
This report examines the current state of conservation recruitment. It aggregates and synthesizes data, testimonials, and recommendations from over 60 sources – including academic studies, non-governmental research, agency planning documents, press articles, and industry surveys - the majority of which were published within the past four years. The report is organized into three parts. The first section details the scale of staffing and workforce diversity challenges that conservation employers face, exploring both the origins and the impacts of these limitations. The second section reviews how conservation employers are currently attempting to diversify their labor force by using various recruitment approaches, training programs, and ancillary benefits. After identifying a prominent gap in the collective conservation recruitment effort, the final section outlines a single recommendation: creating an applicant resource with key features needed to reach previously excluded and/or uninterested candidates.
Key Attributes
We found seven core elements that successful conservation recruitment tools must contain.
-
Outreach and recruitment tools should be oriented towards entry-level applicants, specifically high school and college aged individuals, as the primary audience.
-
Storytelling is key to broadening candidate outreach. Career profiles and position descriptions should be supported with inclusive narratives from both experienced practitioners and young professionals.
-
Tools must be easily accessible by job seekers themselves, not just guidance counselors, educators, and career services teams. Dedicated web and mobile applications can consolidate information and expand outreach.
-
Career profiles and position descriptions should be simplified and easy to interpret. To avoid self-exclusion, positions should be framed around candidates’ interests and capabilities, not their technical, experiential, and educational background.
-
Growth potential should be visually evident and demonstrate progression along both traditional pathways and paths candidates may not have considered, encouraging further career exploration.
-
Tools should highlight profiles and pathways broadly across all sectors - including federal, state, nonprofit, and for-profit employers - to counter the perception that conservation is limited to government’s role in natural resource management.
-
Recruitment tools must include calls to action, mentorship opportunities, and resource links that enable job seekers to take follow-on steps in their career exploration.
“Develop a workforce that values diversity and an inclusive work environment so that we can recruit and retain diverse employees and respond to the needs of the American public.”
Intentional Seasonal Recruitment
Trends in Diversity-Focused Conservation Recruitment Practices of Seasonal Staff
This report examines where conservation employers are succeeding and failing in their efforts to attract diverse candidates to seasonal positions. It summarizes feedback from interviews with 17 hiring professionals, recruitment managers, and program coordinators from both governmental and nonprofit organizations. The interviews’ findings are arranged in this report into three parts. The first section introduces the three main limitations to more inclusive seasonal recruitment. The second section outlines additional factors identified as aggravating – or being aggravated by – the primary challenges to seasonal workforce diversification. The final section presents a summary of recommendations for organizations and hiring personnel seeking more effective DEI-focused seasonal recruitment.
Barriers to intentional recruitment
We found three primary obstacles to diverse, equitable, and inclusive recruitment of seasonal conservation staff.
“I don’t think folks realize how much effort goes into intentional recruitment. They just expect it to happen without putting the monetary resources in place to make it happen.”
