Love it or leave it: a national park story

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Content Love it or Leave it:
A National Park Story
Richard Tamayo
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR
COMMUNICATION AND JOURNALISM
in partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
December 2019
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my parents and my partner for their unconditional support in my pursuit of
higher education. Without them I would not have had the courage to challenge myself and go
through with this program.
I would also like to thank my committee chair, Dan Birman, who helped me see this
project through to the end. Although we did not always see eye to eye, Dan pushed me to be a
better journalist and filmmaker and for that I will always remember him as an important mentor.
Thank you to all of the other important mentors who I met during my time at USC
Annenberg: Mark Schoofs, Rob Kuznia, Diane Winston, Sandy Tolan, Robert Hernandez, and
Keith Plocek.
ii
Table of Contents
I. Purpose 1 .........................................................................................................................
II. Background 3 ...................................................................................................................
1. Organic Act of 1916 3 ..............................................................................................
2. Joshua Tree National Park 3 ...................................................................................
3. NPS Appropriations 4 ..............................................................................................
III. Love it or Leave it 4 .........................................................................................................
1. Prologue/Introduction 5 ...........................................................................................
2. Recreation 6 .............................................................................................................
3. Natural Resources 7 .................................................................................................
4. Preserving Experience 7 ..........................................................................................
5. Cultural Resources/Wrap up 8 .................................................................................
IV . Conclusion 10 ..................................................................................................................
Works Cited 11 ........................................................................................................................
Script 12 ...................................................................................................................................
iii
I. Purpose
It was the fall of 2009 when I first visited Joshua Tree National Park. My five friends and
I, having only planned the trip a few days before, packed a pick-up truck with a couple of tents
and hit the road. There was not a car in sight as we drove through the north entrance of the park
— only a sea of strange spiky contorted Joshua trees, desert shrubs, and giant boulders. We
easily found a campsite at Jumbo Rocks Campground.
As soon as we unpacked, we took a short hike, scrambling along the massive boulders
that give Jumbo Rocks its name. When we returned to our campsite, I learned my first lesson in
proper outdoor stewardship, when I realized that paved roads, picnic tables, and bathrooms don’t
make these outdoor spaces the exclusive playground of humans. The burritos I left out in the
open were gone, and the creature that took them had left scraps of plastic and aluminum foil
scattered across our campground.
In 2018, Joshua Tree Superintendent David Smith designated Jumbo Rocks a reservation-
only campground during the peak season that occurs from October through May. Superintendent
Smith stated: “A constant parade of vehicles driving through a campground looking for an
available campsite is really disruptive for campers in search of an outdoor experience. We hope
to enhance the visitor experience at Jumbo Rocks with this new policy and provide better
management of the campground."
1
The change in policy is reflective of a national park that is experiencing a significant
increase in visitation. In 2018 the park saw almost 3 million visitors, about double the number of
visitors from 2014. This increase in visitation presents challenges for visitors and the park’s “Jumbo Rocks…”
1
1
alike. Visitors have to contend with long lines, overcrowded campgrounds, and parking
shortages, while park managers are left having to balance protecting natural and cultural
2
resources while also preserving the quality of visitor experience.
3
The National Park Service, (NPS), which is under the umbrella of the United States
Department of the Interior, (DOI), has seen only a small increase in congressional appropriations
to accommodate the needs associated with increased visitation. As of 2019 Joshua Tree National
4
Park has a backlog of almost $66 million in deferred maintenance. The deferred maintenance
backlog includes funding for paved roads, campgrounds, trails, water systems, and other key
infrastructure.
5
Looking at the over-all visitation numbers with NPS funding opened up some questions.
What types of environmental impacts do visitors cause? Are new visitors conscientious of
stewardship, and if not, what should be done? How are park managers dealing with the influx of
visitors? How do park managers balance the need to conserve natural and cultural resources with
the responsibility to maintain a quality of experience for visitors?
These questions were central to my approach in reporting for Love it or Leave it. For this
project, I chose to shoot a documentary, believing a visual medium to be the most effective way
to convey the ethos of why we have national parks to begin with. In 1912, in an article written
for the publication The Outlook, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote: “The establishment of the
National Park Service is justified by considerations of good administration, of the value of
Descant, Skip. “Going to Joshua Tree…”
2
Smith, David. Interview.
3
Comay, Laura. “National Park Service…
4
“NPS Deferred Maintenance by State and Park”
5
2
natural beauty as a national asset, and of the effectiveness of outdoor life and recreation in the
production of good citizenship.” Using a camera, I attempted to capture the natural beauty that
6
is protected by the National Park Service.
II. Background
1. Organic Act of 1916
Part of the challenge that the NPS faces, is written in the congressional act that
established it in the first place. The NPS was created in 1916 under President Woodrow Wilson.
The act states: “The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal
areas known as national parks, monuments and reservations…which purpose is to conserve the
scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the
enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations.”
7
The way the act is written creates a challenge for the NPS in balancing the preservation
of natural and historical resources with the visitor experience. Thus any challenges that arise
from the increase in visitation is not as easy as blocking public access.
8
2. Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park is an 800 thousand acre park located at the intersection of the
Mojave and Colorado Deserts in Southern California. It was established first as a national
monument in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt after Minerva Hoyt—a California
“A National Park Service”
6
‘Organic Act of 1916.”
7
Ibid.
8
3
resident with a passion for desert plants—advocated for its protection. It gained national park
status in 1994 after the Desert Protection Bill was passed by Congress.
9
3. NPS Appropriations
Appropriations for the NPS increased by less than 1% in inflation adjusted dollars
between 2010 and 2019. Appropriations are divided into six accounts: operations; construction;
historic preservation fund; land acquisition and state assistance; national recreation and
preservation; and centennial challenge.
10
The operations account covers day-to-day operations within each park such as visitor
services, resource stewardship, park protection, facility operations, maintenance, and park
support. It received 75% of appropriations in 2019, making it the most funded of the six
accounts, yet despite an increased amount of people visiting parks, it has seen a 5% decrease in
inflation-adjusted dollars over the last decade.
11
II. Love it or Leave it.
My interest in pursuing this project came from my experience with visiting national
parks. I decided to focus on Joshua Tree National Park because of its close proximity to Los
Angeles.
Love it or Leave it follows three frequent visitors of Joshua Tree: John Lauretig, a retired
park ranger and executive director of Friends of Joshua Tree, a local organization that works with
the park to promote stewardship and assist with search and rescue; Chris Clarke, a veteran
environmental journalist and Desert Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation
“How a South Pasadena…”
9
Comay, Laura. “National Park Service Appropriations…”
10
ibid.
11
4
Association; and Chris Mosser, who mainly visits the park to rock climb. Throughout the film I
include the expert perspective of Joshua Tree Superintendent David Smith, and other park staff.
The narrative of the film is structured around Lauretig, Clarke, and Mosser exploring the
park. Lauretig’s expertise comes from his experience as a park ranger as well as his involvement
in park politics as the executive director of Friends of Joshua Tree. Clarke, who has around 25
years of experience writing about the Mojave Desert, uses his expertise to show us the value of
the cultural and natural resources that are in the park. Mosser serves as a case study of one the
ways in which the park is used for recreation.
I intended to explore the relationship between experience and conservation and the
challenges the NPS faces in trying to deal with the increasing number of visitors as federal
funding remains stagnant. While there are other issues like climate change that continue to have
a devastating impact on our public lands, I chose to focus specifically on the problems that
12
come from recreation, believing that with the right information, future visitors can be mindful of
proper stewardship.
1. Prologue/Introduction
In the prologue, the viewer is introduced to the park and the central issues of visitation
and funding are addressed. Lauretig shows us an example of poor stewardship by pointing out a
pile of trash laying on the floor of a popular campground. The shots of the landscapes show the
viewer the iconic landscapes that make these lands worthy of their national park status.
Horton, Alex. “Climate Change is Destroying…”
12
5
Following the prologue, park Superintendent David Smith explains the history of the
national park. I chose to include the history at the beginning of the film, as a way to
contextualize to the viewer that the park was founded with a mission of protecting the desert.
2. Recreation
The next sequence shows us Clarke, who is standing in the middle of a poppy field
during the spring bloom. I included this sequence in the section following the history of the park
because it shows the clash between experience and preservation, as we see a photographer
walking directly through the poppy fields. Visitors may not have the intention of inflicting harm,
however recreating in the outdoors without mindfulness can have harmful impacts to the desert
landscapes.
13
In the next sequence, the viewer is introduced to Mosser, a regular visitor to Joshua Tree.
Although there are many forms of recreation that take place in the park, I thought it was
important to include a user group with a legacy in Joshua Tree.
14
When we are first introduced to Mosser we see that he is waiting in line to get in the park.
This shot reveals the long lines that have become more common for visitors. The
15
Superintendent explains the proximity of the park to various cities, and Mosser reveals that he is
a resident of Los Angeles who tries to get to the outdoors as often as he can.
In the shots that follow, we see a continuation of an issue introduced by Clarke in the
sequence before. Visitors recreating, in this case bouldering, have an impact on the soil and
vegetation that they use.
Interview, Chris Clarke.
13
Kane, Jenny. “Landscape of Belonging…”
14
Descant, Skip. “Going to Joshua Tree…”
15
6
3. Natural Resources
In the next section, Lauretig, Clarke, and park staff explain to us how crowding in
popular areas impact the desert landscapes. Those impacts include the damage to soil and
vegetation caused by people placing bouldering crash pads and hiking through non-established
trails.
Lauretig shows us how concentrated activity has stripped a popular area of its vegetation
and left behind bare compacted soil. He then points out a lush patch of desert to show us how the
land would look if there were no human activity in the area. Superintendent Smith explains how
he is seeing damage to the desert soil and vegetation more often.
Clarke explains just how precious and resilient the natural resources in the desert are by
showing us the Mojave Yucca, a plant species that can live for thousands of years if left
undisturbed.
16
4. Preserving Experience
In this section we learn some of the challenges the park faces in preserving quality of
experience. As visitation rises, so do search and rescues. The park supplements the search and
rescue team with volunteers, which we see in a sequence where they are performing a technical
training.
Additionally, we learn how it’s not just a lack of resources that stop the park from
building infrastructure, it is also concerns over conservation. Construction of infrastructure
means an impact on the natural resources where the construction is taking place.
17
Clarke, Chris. “Walking Among 20000-year…
16
Interview, David Smith.
17
7
5. Cultural Resources/Wrap-up
I conclude this documentary with Clarke showing us an area with signs of human impact
that occurred long before the park was established. He shows us how national parks don’t just
18
protect natural resources, they protect cultural resources too, explaining how during the 2019
government shutdown, some of these resources were affected. I chose to include this sequence
towards the end because it shows the most extreme example of how having a defunded park can
have an impact on what they are there to protect.
In the final sequence, Mosser packs his climbing equipment and ends his day at the park,
having met a few new friends. Clarke and park Superintendent Smith explain the value that
national parks bring to people and why it is important to keep them funded.
I decided to end the documentary with Clarke talking about how preserving the
wilderness gives people a space to think and reflect and Superintendent Smith explaining how
national parks help to preserve American history.
IV . Conclusion
The challenges in producing this documentary were directly related to the nature of what
a national park is. A national park is wilderness that has been institutionalized for the purposes of
science, conservation, and recreation. This institutionalization of the wilderness means that any
story told will be multifaceted ranging from considerations of public policy, environmentalism,
economy, history, biology, and more. Every person I interviewed, no matter their expertise,
identified problems that fell into a wide range of categories that required deep and considerate
reporting. I knew I wanted to make a documentary about the increased visitation in our national
Clarke, Chris “Tree of Knowledge”
18
8
parks, but narrowing my focus and determining how to tell the story, proved to be my biggest
challenge.
Ultimately, I turned to my own experience to narrow my focus. I first visited a national
park at the age of 19, before that I had virtually no experience with using public lands. When I
visited Joshua Tree National Park, I didn’t even know I was in a national park. According to a
survey conducted by the NPS, one of the biggest barriers to accessing national parks, is not
knowing much about national parks to begin with. With this in mind, I decided to focus on the
19
tension between conservation and experience written in the Organic Act of 1916. My hope is that
both new and experienced outdoor enthusiasts will watch this film and learn that the National
Park Service was created for the enjoyment of the public, but also for the preservation of natural
beauty for generations to come.
There are two areas where I would have liked to do more reporting that I think would
have added greater depth to my results. First, I would have liked to explore how visitation to
national parks affects national and local economies. In 2018, visitors to national parks spent an
estimated $20.2 billion in the gateway regions to national parks, contributing about 329,000 jobs
and $40 billon in economic output nationwide.
20
When I interviewed Chris Clarke, he mentioned how he has seen residents living in the
towns in Joshua Tree and 29 Palms—the cities adjacent to the park’s main entrances —benefiting
from all of the tourism that the park has been experiencing. According to a visitor spending
21
report conducted by the NPS, tourism contributed about $196 million in economic output to the
“NPS Comprehensive Survey of…”
19
“2018 National Park Visitor Spending…”
20
Interview with Clarke, Chris.
21
9
local economy around the park. These numbers raise the question of how park policy affects
22
the communities that surround it.
Additionally, I think that my section on social trails would have been strengthened if I
included a sequence on the wildlife that are impacted by their creation. Unfortunately, I was
unable to find an expert within my timeline who could safely lead me to wildlife in the area.
“2018 National Park Visitor Spending…”
22
10
Works Cited
Clarke, Chris “The Tree of Knowledge ” KCET, Accessed July 31, 2019 20, 2019.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/landscape-of-belonging-joshua-trees-
climbing-legacy
Clarke, Chris “Walking Among 2000 Year old plants.” KCET Accessed July
20, 2019. https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/landscape-of-belonging-joshua-trees-
climbing-legacy
Comay, Laura. “National Park Service Appropriations: Ten-Year Trends.” 2019, Congressional
Research Service. Accessed August 18, 2019. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42757.pdf
“Famous Quotes Concerning The National Parks.” National Park Service. Accessed August 20,
2019. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSThinking/famousquotes.htm
Horton, Alex. “Climate change is destroying our parks our an alarming rate.” Washington Post
Accessed August 20, 2019 https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/
2018/09/25/climate-change-is-destroying-our-national-parks-an-alarming-rate-studyfinds/
Interview with Clarke, Chris. April 25, 2019.
Interview with Haroutunian, Kenji. November 1, 2018
Interview with Lauretig, John. December 4, 2018
Interview with Regan, Bernadette. February 22, 2019
Interview with Rodgers, Jane. February 22, 2019.
Interview with Smith, David. February 22, 2019.
Kane, Jenny. “Landscape of Belonging: Joshua Tree’s Climbing Legacy.” KCET. July 5th, 2017.
Accessed July 20, 2019. https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/landscape-of
belonging-joshua-trees-climbing-legacy
Netburn, Deborah. How a South Pasadena patron used her wits and wealth to create Joshua
Tree National Park.” Los Angeles Times. February 4th, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/sci
ence/sciencenow/la-sci-col1-joshua-tree-minerva-hoyt-20190214-htmlstory.html
Tamayo, Richard. “Love it or Leave it: A National Park Story”: https://youtu.be/QvDC2DQJrV8
11
Slug: Love it or Leave it: A National
Park Story
A documentary by Richard Tamayo
9/4/2019 Final Draft
NAT Sound
Fade in
Text Card: “Optimism is a good
characteristic, but if carried to an
excess, it becomes foolishness. We are
prone to speak of the resources of this
country as inexhaustible” —Theodore
Roosevelt
SOT: JOHN LAURETIG, Executive
Director of Friends of Joshua Tree
Clip: A006_2018_12_John-Lauretig-9
4;52;47;01 - 4;52;49;01
So here we are in Hidden Valley Campground inside
Joshua Tree National Park.
SOT John Lauretig
Clip: A006_2018_12_John-Lauretig-12
4;50;57;16 - 4;51;06;11
CU of pile of trash
OTS of John
This is a perfect example of folks in the campground
not taking care of their trash. They probably head
their trash bag next to their car or under their picnic
table, and a coyote found it, brought it out here,
ripped it apart, took what he wanted and left that
trash there.
NAT Sound
WS Hidden Valley campground.
John scrambles up a boulders
Wind and footsteps.
12
SOT John Lauretig
Clip:
A006_2018_12_John-Lauretig-9
4;51;56;00 - 4;52;11;06
MCU of John standing on top of a pile
of boulders
So I've worked for the federal government in law
enforcement for 25 years 15 of that in the National
Park Service and being a visitor and park user and a
federal employee. I've been to work it nine different
national parks and visited Untold numbers after that,
but my experience with the park service is always
been very positive and. Because of that after I retired
I wanted to help friends of Joshua Tree continue and
promote responsible use in our public lands and and
help Joshua Tree as much as I can.
Text: John Lauretig is the Executive
Director of Friends of Joshua Tree, a
volunteer organization that works with
the National Park Service to educate
rock climbers on proper outdoor
stewardship
SOT John Lauretig
Clip: A006_2018_12_John-Lauretig-11
5;05;05;16 - 5;5;45;25
POV of Hidden Valley Campground
CU of John Lauretig
The biggest problem Joshua Tree National Park sees
right now is underfunding understaffed and way way
too many visitors and I hate to say way too many
visitors, but you know, it's a beautiful place.
Everybody wants to come here and experience this
and you can't fault people for coming here, but we
can fault the government for not supplying enough
staff and money and funding to manage these
beautiful places and try to educate folks how to
responsibly use our public lands.
13
SOT David Smith, Superintendent of
Joshua Tree National Park
Clip:A005_2019_02_Dave-Smith
11;54;16;07 - 11;54;50;22
Shot of entrance sign to Joshua Tree
National Park
Picture of Minerva Hoyt Landscape
shots
Back in 1936 a well-to-do socialite named Minerva
Hoyt was alarmed at the number of cacti that were
disappearing from the California desert in the Palm
Springs area. And she was alarmed at folks coming
out to the desert and disrespecting it torching Joshua
trees and things like that. So she advocated to the
president the time FDR said hey, this is a special part
of the California desert needs to be preserved.
You know, can you do something about it? And so
FDR created Joshua Tree national monument at the
time. And then when the California desert protection
act passed in 1994, the park was greatly expanded in
size and became a national park. So today Joshua
Tree National Park preserves that initial plant-based
that was so significant to Minerva Hoyt but also a
variety of other things as well the the rock
formations that are here the transition between the
Mojave and the Sonoran Desert that happens in the
middle of the park.
SOT: Chris Clarke
Clip: A007_Clarke-14
04;22;9;08 - 4;22;36;06
Landscape shots
So I thought for a minute that the folks over there
were doing wild flower safe photography, but it
looks like the photographer is over there walking
through the flowers.
14
SOT Chris Clarke,
WS of people surrounded by yellow
flowers.
CU Chris Clarke
You know people don't get that these flowers are
fragile, you know they are out in the desert so they
must be really sturdy, I guess is the assumption.
This is actually the best wild flower boom I've seen
in years.
NAT Sound
Text: Chris Clarke is a desert program
manager for the Nationol Parks
Conservation Association, an
organization dedicated to defending and
advocating for our National Parks.
Birds chirping.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: A007_Clarke-14
04;19;07;25 - 04;19;32;15
Not everybody is doing the right thing the way these
folks are by staying on the trail, you know, they're
being very thoughtful but there are people that want
to get the picture of themselves sprawled out in the
middle of the poppies, you know, holding their
phone up so they get a selfie of them you know lying
on a bed of flowers and it only takes a couple people
doing that before the bloom is not as super.
NAT Sound
Clip:A0089_2019_02_Establishing-2
17;34;07;27 - 17;34;17;03
Shot of sign that says
"Joshua Tree Nat'l Park 0.50 miles”
Car engine
15
SOT DavidSmith
Clip: A007_2019_02_Dave-
Smith#7.MXF
12;12;10;27 - 12;12;28;19
I think Joshua tree is unique in that it is so close to
so many Urban environment. You know folks from
the Inland Empire from Los Angeles from San Diego
from Phoenix from Las Vegas. That’s 20 million
people right there that can drive to this park in 2 or 3
hours.
SOT Chris Mosser, park visitor
Clip:2019_03_Mosser-55
22;06;37;02 - 22;06;57;19
Right now I work in law, I am a paralegal. Nine-to-
five or sometime eight to ten depending on what. I
work in the law so I don't really have much time to
go outdoors. I am a typical weekend warrior in LA
trying to get outdoors as much as I can. Usually
that's just the weekends.
SOT David Smith
Clip: A005_2019_Dave-Smith
12;00;10;02 - 12;00;23;03
WS Chris Mosser hiking through the
desert
In the last I would say three, four, five years. That's
when the real big significant changes have come to
Joshua Tree in the sense of visitation. We've gone
from about 1.3 million visitors a year to three
million visitors a year back in 2018. So that is a huge
increase of people coming to a park and most of the
folks that come here are concentrated in the
Northwestern section of the park where the big
Joshua trees are and the rock formations.
SOT David Smith
Clip: A005_2019_Dave-Smith
12;32;49;;19 - 12;32;58;20
WS Chris Mosser and a group of
climbers gathered around a boulder
So we think about a seventh of our visitors come
specifically just for climbing. Our surveys indicate
that they have come here only because they are
interested in climbing.
They are a part of Joshua Tree's history. For the last
50 years people have come here to climb.
NAT Sound
CU Chris Mosser's hand clenched on a
groove in the rock.
MS Chris Mosser climbs a boulder.
Mosser's heavy breathing.
16
SOT Bernadette Regan
Clip: 2019_02_Climbing Ranger
13;16;52;09 - 13;17;24;17
Climbing Ranger at Joshua Tree
National Park
Sequence of Mosser climbing boulder
"What I have seen grow more than people climbing
with ropes, are boulderers. there is a whole lot of
people bouldering in this park.
What's happening with bouldering specifically is
groups of 20 or thirty people come from the same
town and they all come together and they each have
their [own] crash pad,. and they go to the boulders
and the crash pads get all over the place, sometimes
on the plants sometimes on the sand, and they are all
scattered and then there is 40 people hanging out
around one boulder and then one person climbing at
a time.
SOT Jane Rodgers, Chief of Science
and resource stewardship
Mosser finishes the climb.
Clip: 2019_02_JaneSmith
12;57;56;12 - 12;58;17;13
MCU Chris makes it to the top of the
boulder.
Medium of Chris packing up to move to
the next climb.
So climbing and in any recreational use can have an
impact on the biological communities in a national
park or the geology of a national park and that those
impacts are from placing crash pads on top of
vegetation or biological soil crust. Can be from
placing gear at the bottom of a climb and so those
two things just kind of struggle to co-exist.
SOT John Lauretig
Clip:2018_12_John-Lauterig-7
04;49;15;25 - 04;49;18;21
WS Mosser hikes through rocky terrain
One of the things we have to remember about the
desert is we got about 10 inches of rain a year here,
and the desert just doesn't recover that fast with that
little water.
17
SOT John Lauretig
Clip:2018_12_John-Lauterig-2
04;35;15;25 - 04;35;49;03
MCU on green vegitation at the base of
rocks Medium of John a Quil Springs
day use area.
A long time ago before folks figure out that you
could boulder here, the desert kind of looked like
that at the base of those rocks. But because of all the
human impacts we have had bouldering, climbing,
folks just enjoying the desert. You can see that all the
vegetation is gone and the desert is bare, and what
we want to try to do is minimize those impacts on
the desert. Here it's a little tougher to do that because
there is so much foot traffic and so much activity in
this area. But what we want to do is not have this
affect, everywhere out there in the desert.
SOT David Smith
Clip: 2019_02_DavidSmith
12;00;38;09 - 12;00;54;14
Wide Mosser hikes through desert
landscape
As a park manager, I see creep. I see plants
disappearing from the roadside as people drive off
roads to find parking. I see trails expanding and a
spider web of social trails being established across
the desert landscape which impacts the vegetation
and the animals that use those.
SOT John Lauretig
Clip: 2018_12_John-Lauterig-3
04;38;43;05 - 04;38;55;29
A social trail is a trail that is not designated or
maintained by the park. It's where folks go off
exploring which is fine but people will see your foot
steps and think 'oh something must be over there.' So
they'll follow your footsteps and someone else will
follow those footsteps and all of a sudden there’s a
social trail.
SOT Jane Rodgers
Clip:2019_02_Janesmith-social trai
12;55;28;04 - 12;55;39;08
I some areas social trails are fine. You're gonna have
people trying to get from one place to another. What
that comes with is an impact to the vegetation
community, so that has a cascading effect. If you
have less vegetation that's less habitat, that's less
cover for birds and mammals. That's less food for
foraging so all of those things are connected.
18
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-5
02;53;40;04 - 02;53;50;17
Wide: Chris Clarke walks through a
field that is densely populated with
desert vegetation.
You know as long as the trails are here it's better that
people stay on them, but it would be better if they
weren't there in the first place and having trails that
had some thought put into where they go.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-5
02;47;58;12 - 02;48;18;20
There is a soil community called crypto-biotic soil
crust. It's a community of fungal strands and bacteria
of different kinds and sometime mosses and it covers
the soil in areas where it has not been disturbed.
It can keep dust down, wind can pick up and it'll just
hold all the soil particles down, it absorbs water, it
sequesters carbon we are learning, it's a really
important ally in the fight against climate change
and if you step on it you break it.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-15
04;40;11;04 - 04;40;28;04
Medium: Joshua tree. Chris's hand
comes into frame as he points to the
Mojave yucca in the distance.
There is a clump of Mojave yucca over there, that's
probably a thousand years old or more.
19
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip:
Clarke-15
04;42;28;04 - 04;44;07;15
With this one, there are some dead stems in the
center that were probably the original plant and its
first couple of offspring. But this has been growing
outward very slowly and plants this old are
everywhere you look in the desert. There is a
creosote bush not far from us that was documented
at around 11,700 years old back in the 80's. And
that's just the one we know about, there are so many
ancient plants in the desert because the landscape
has been left alone for that long and not just by
industrial humanity but also by wildfire and
landslides and things like that. The landscape has
been left to develop on its own and plants can live a
really long time if they have the right adaptations.
Things in a desert grow slowly. It makes their wood
stronger. It means they are less likely to put out a lot
of tender succulent growth that gets killed back by a
frost or by a heat wave. They just grow slowly and
endure for centuries and millennia. Those of us that
are in the desert get to stand next to them and think
about that, and that's a lovely thing.
SOT David Smith
Clip:2019_02_David-Smith
12;21;39;02 - 12;21;54;03
Wide: Camera pans past dry brush and
Joshua tees to reveal the garage where
Joshua Tree volunteer search and rescue
hold their trainings.
I've got a pretty limited staff at Joshua Tree. We have
around a hundred people working in the park serving
3 million visitors a year. It's not substantial
compared to some of the other park sites across the
United States. We rely on volunteers to be stewards
to take care of the park.
20
SOT: Matt Finlon, Joshua Tree Search
and Rescue (JOSAR)
Clip:2019_02_Josar-2
14;32;01;06 - 14;32;16;24
What I am going to do is send an email to the
membership and say " if you have anyone that wants
to join JOSAR, because people are sending them to
me, have them go to this URL.
SOT Matt Finlon
Clip: 2019_02_Josar-2
14;33;02;02 - 14;33;06;20
Speaking To the rest of volunteers in
actuality sequence.
CU on rescue equipment
I am not sure what the parks official policy is about
who we accept and who we don’t accept. So are we
going to train a hundred people? I got a lot of push
back last year when I said we are gonna train 40.
SOT Matt Finlon
Clip: 2019_02_Josar-4
14;34;14;06 - 14;34;19;24
On Camera
So in the first five months of 2018, we had more call
outs than all of 2018 combined.
SOT John Lauretig
Clip: 2019_02_Josar-2
14;38;28;06 - 14;38;33;25
On Camera
You know its just numbers right? You increase the
amount of visitors and your are going to increase the
amount of rescues.
21
SOT John Lauretig
Clip;
JOSAR-4
14;46;34;22 - 14;46;50;29
Leads a search and rescue technical
training
Does anybody in the group see anything that stands
out to them? Anything that there is a problem with?
SOT Matt Finlon
Clip: 019_02_Josar-4
14;32;01;06 - 14;32;16;24
CU of hand checking equipment
I won't say anything because I will be the official
safety.
NAT Sound V olunteers checking their gear.
SOT John Lauretig
Clip: 2019_02_Josar-4
Okay safety go through.
NAT Sound
Matt Finlon does a safety check.
SOT Matt Finlon
Clip:
Josar-4
14;48;31;22 - 14;49;17;23
Just for everyone’s edification, I am not sure if we
ever checked it, but we had one open gate here.
22
SOT John Lauretig
Clip:
JOSAR-4
14;48;31;22
Any comments or questions? Okay let's break it
down.
SOT Chris Mosser
Clip:
Mosser-25
20;30;38;21 - 20;30;54;11
Medium: Through the windshield at
cars looking for parking.
Pan to CU of Chris Mosser talking to
camera.
We are trying to find park but unfortunately it is a
full lot because we came a little late to this area. This
is the busy intersection rock. There are two parking
lots out here but as you can see it's pretty busy.
SOT David Smith
Clip:2019_02_David-Smith
12;09;08;08 - 12;09;50;14
On Camera
Our infrastructure has not kept up with expectations.
So, I get kids that come into the park. That's like,
you know, where can I connect with Wi-Fi, you
know, do you have a hot spot, you know here so I
can so I can tweet and it's weighing that out in like
well do I do I create a cell tower in this location
that's going to take away from the wilderness
properties, which is one of the reasons this park was
created. But I also want to allow folks to enjoy it in a
way that is Meaningful to them. So it's tough for
Rangers and managers to constantly way those two
things. I can put in another thousand camping spots
inside the park but that would create new impact in
all the areas that we do that.
23
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-15
04;27;30;10 - 04;27;53;21
Sequence of Chris Mosser finding
parking and preparing to hike out.
There is tension between making amenities so that
the park is more comfortable for visitors. And
considering the impact of each visitor on the park
and then adding them all up. I mean the easier it is to
visit a park. The more people are going to do
damage to that Park just naturally.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip:Clarke-15
04;30;16;28 - 04;31;33;17
Chris Mosser hikes to a boulder where
there are many people already climbing.
In Joshua Tree probably most of the people that
come here show up in the north and west part of the
park near the town of Joshua Tree where most of the
climbing is and most of the paved roads and day use
areas with picnic tables are. There are places in this
park where you can go and not see anybody for
hours. There is a degree to which these kinds of
amenities do concentrate the impact in certain areas
and that is often a strategy that land managers use to
control impacts outside of those areas. But it's not
fool proof and it's not simple.
Nat Sound
Chris Clarke gets out of his car.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-9
03;23;58;20 - 03;24;15;16
This is an area that had some off-road vehicle
trespass during the shutdown. People wanted to
camp here.
24
Text:In early 2019, the United States
Congress failed to pass its yearly
spending bill, resulting in a partial
shutdown of the federal government.

A majority of National Park staff were
furloughed, leaving Joshua Tree with
limited staff to enforce park rules.
During the 35-day shutdown, the park
saw miles of soil and vegetation
damage by off-road vehicles.
Music:
Serene2.wav
SOT Chris Clare
Clip:Clarke-9
03;24;15;17 - 03;24;43;02
On Camera
It's an interesting spot because it shows us both the
worst and the best aspects of human use of the site.
This is the only tree that we know of in the park and
possibly anywhere. It's a hybrid oak and it's
hundreds of years old. It's pretty clear that it was
treasured.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip:Clarke-9
03;25;15;02 - 03;27;32;29
Shows us rock with signs of ancient
human use.
CU on rock.
Like here. It's clearly a place where people had
started to use mortar and a hole in the rock to grind
acorns into a meal. So this is very old history of
human use in this sight. I like to bring people here
just to show them the different range of human use
on the landscape.
25
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-10
03;35;46;06 - 03;36;24;16
Camera follows him as he walks
through the sandy wash.
CU of Chris Clarke
One thing that's important to remember about the
parks out here is that because of the human
resources like we saw on the grinding rock and the
oak tree, there is an immense cultural aspect to the
landscape here. During the shutdown, details are
hard to come by and it makes sense because we don't
want to advertise where some of these cultural
resources are but there was damage that was
unchecked. We've been talking about damage to
natural resources like stepping on the cryptobiotic
soil that can take decades or even centuries to heal.
Losing those cultural resources, that's never going to
heal.
SOT David Smith
Clip: 2019_02_David-Smith
12;10;53;24 - 12;11;04;23
Medium: Chris Mosser readies himself
to climb
The courts have said that conservation or
preservation trumps recreation. If we don't preserve
these resources, you're not going to be able to
recreate it in the future. Realistically that's really
tough because I am sure there is certain people that
advocate, well close it off. But I don't think that was
the original intent of the legislation, and I don't think
that's necessarily what the American people want.
SOT David Smith.
Clip: 2019_02_David-Smith
12;11;06;20 - 12;11;25;22
Medium: Chris Mosser climbs a
boulder
Life is tough in a big city and you need that chance
to come to a place like Joshua Tree to get a charge to
remember what life is all about to be in these remote
places.
My biggest problem is how do we deal with this
over all visitation number. How do we craft a
message that says, hey if you come out on Monday,
your experience is going to be much better than on a
Saturday.
SOT David Smith
Clip:
2019_02_David-Smith
12;11;33;16 - 12;11;39;13
I don't want to say visitation is bad. It develops
stewardship and love. It's just how can we do a
better job of managing expectations and providing
the infrastructure and experience that's going to let
you go away and say 'wow that was a really
spectacular day I had inside the park."
26
NAT Sound
Chris Mosser wrapping up his climb
with a group of people he just met.
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-9
03;12;15;24 - 03;12;47;22
Sequence of Chris Mosser hiking back
to his car.
Music:
Serene2.wav
Lots and lots of parks are struggling under the
weight of the people that want to go see them. It's
kind of a tough call because you don't want parks to
be the exclusive playground of folks who can plan
18 months in advance. You want people to say ‘hey I
got a three day weekend and enough money for a
couple of tanks of gas, let's go to Joshua Tree.’
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-15
04;32;11;07 - 04;32;41;29
*Begin wrap up sequence*
Music: Serene2.wav
Having a fully funded national park service, does
have a cost to Americans of a few cents a year. It's a
really small percentage of the national budget. It
pays for itself many fold. Its economic Development
Park dollars that are spent in the parks are multiplied
10 or more times in the economies of the local
community surrounding those parks.
27
SOT
Chris Clarke
Clip:
Clarke-15
04;32;51;09 - 04;33;03;14
Medium: Chris Mosser gets into his car and
drives away.
Music: Serene2.wav
There are all kinds of things that the park service
would like to do to better educate people that are
visiting those parks to better protect the resources,
that they just don't have the money to do.
SOT David Smith
Clip:
2019_02_Dave-Smith
12;48;24 - 12;49;39;24
POV of driving through the park
Music:
Serene2.wav
Our population continues to grow we've got these
significant that these significant places across the
United States that are that are part of our story as
Americans and. There's a whole bunch of parks, you
know, you put them all together and it really is the
best of what we stand for as a country. You know,
they tell stories, you know here at Joshua Tree the,
you know, the story of pioneers coming out here and
the the hardships they went through the tribes that
lived here and how they survive.
So we preserve these sites because it's our story, and
without our story, what are we as Americans?
28
SOT Chris Clarke
Clip: Clarke-15
04;34;16;20 - 04;35;33;15
CU of Chris Clarke driving
Music fades out when car engine stops
Fade into Joshua Tree sunset
Music starts again as soon as Chris
Clarke stops talking
Music:
Serene2.wav
I would bet that everyone that comes here, goes
away with a greater appreciation of the time that
they spent, and the life that they have that allows
them to come to places like this even if it's once a
year. It's just a much better place to contemplate and
to think about what your life is and what it means in
a landscape like this. Then it would be in a lot of
other places, whether it's a commuter train, or a
subway platform, or a super market. If you had to
think about the meaning of life, and you had some
big questions you were grappling with and direction
your life wanted to go. Whether or not to pursue a
relationship or what to do about your kid who is
unhappy would you rather do that thinking here, or
in a Walmart parking lot? I think most people would
rather do it here, you get a better sense of where you
fit into the universe.
29
Text: Since 2010, the National Park
Service has seen an increase of more
than 100 million visitor to its parks.
Congressional appropriations for the
National Park Service have increased
by only 1%;
As of September 2018, the National
Park Service has a backlog of repairs
and infrastructure updates of more than
11 billion dollars.
Music:
Serene2.wav
30

Abstract (if available)

Abstract It was the fall of 2009 when I first visited Joshua Tree National Park. My five friends and I, having only planned the trip a few days before, packed a pick-up truck with a couple of tents and hit the road. There was not a car in sight as we drove through the north entrance of the park—only a sea of strange spiky contorted Joshua trees, desert shrubs, and giant boulders. We easily found a campsite at Jumbo Rocks Campground. ❧ As soon as we unpacked, we took a short hike, scrambling along the massive boulders that give Jumbo Rocks its name. When we returned to our campsite, I learned my first lesson in proper outdoor stewardship, when I realized that paved roads, picnic tables, and bathrooms don’t make these outdoor spaces the exclusive playground of humans. The burritos I left out in the open were gone, and the creature that took them had left scraps of plastic and aluminum foil scattered across our campground. ❧ In 2018, Joshua Tree Superintendent David Smith designated Jumbo Rocks a reservation-only campground during the peak season that occurs from October through May. Superintendent Smith stated: “A constant parade of vehicles driving through a campground looking for an available campsite is really disruptive for campers in search of outdoor experience. We hope to enhance the visitor experience at Jumbo Rocks with this new policy and provide better management of the campground.” ❧ The change in policy is reflective of a national park that is experiencing a significant increase in visitation. In 2018 the park saw almost 3 million visitors, about double the number of visitors from 2014. This increase in visitation presents challenges for visitors and the park’s managers alike. Visitors have to contend with long lines, overcrowded campgrounds, and parking shortages, while park managers are left having to balance protecting natural and cultural resources while also preserving the quality of visitor experience. ❧ The National Park Service, (NPS), which is under the umbrella of the United States Department of the Interior, (DOI), has seen only a small increase in congressional appropriations to accommodate the needs associated with increased visitation. As of 2019 Joshua Tree National Park has a backlog of almost $66 million in deferred maintenance. The deferred maintenance backlog includes funding for paved roads, campgrounds, trails, water systems, and other key infrastructure. ❧ Looking at the over-all visitation numbers with NPS funding opened up some questions. What types of environmental impacts do visitors cause? Are new visitors conscientious of stewardship, and if not, what should be done? How are park managers dealing with the influx of visitors? How do park managers balance the need to conserve natural and cultural resources with the responsibility to maintain quality of experience for visitors? ❧ These questions were central to my approach in reporting for Love it or Leave it. For this project, I chose to shoot a documentary, believing a visual medium to be the most effective way to convey the ethos of why we have national parks, to begin with. In 1912, in an article written for the publication The Outlook, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote: “The establishment of the National Park Service is justified by considerations of good administration, of the value of natural beauty as a national asset, and of the effectiveness of outdoor life and recreation in the production of good citizenship.” Using a camera, I attempted to capture the natural beauty that is protected by the National Park Service.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Asset Metadata

Creator Tamayo, Richard Brandon (author)

Core Title Love it or leave it: a national park story

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 12/10/2019

Defense Date 09/11/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag bouldering,California,climbers,Colorado Desert,conservation,desert soils,Joshua tree,Joshua Tree National Park,Mojave Desert,national park,National Park Service,OAI-PMH Harvest,Parks,public lands,rock climbing,United States Public Lands

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Birman, Daniel (committee chair), Plocek, Keith (committee member), Tolan, Sandy (committee member)

Creator Email rbtamayo@usc.edu,rtamayo.film@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-249248

Unique identifier UC11673884

Identifier etd-TamayoRich-8036.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-249248 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-TamayoRich-8036.pdf

Dmrecord 249248

Document Type Thesis

Rights Tamayo, Richard Brandon

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA