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Earlier today we recorded a greeting from our office to new #nationalparkservice Director Chuck Sams.
As 2021 comes to a close, we can now reflect on NPS international activities over the past year. While in-person exchanges continued to be rare due to the ongoing global pandemic, we supported scores of direct, virtual connections with foreign counterparts and reached thousands of colleagues. We hope for continued engagement in the New Year to come.
One of our oldest #worldheritage #juniorrangers hails from France, who sent us seasons greetings and updated us on the many #usnationalparks that he's visited in his 70+years with photos of the badges and patches he's earned over the past 25 years visiting our national parks. All of us wish all of you a very happy holidays!
In celebration of our Office’s #60Anniversary we have asked recent @NPS retirees to share stories of their international experiences and what it meant to them personally and for their parks and visitors.
Today we bring you the reminiscences of former #BlackCanyonoftheGunnisonNationalPark and #CurecantiNPS Superintendent Bruce Noble, who was contacted by the U.S. Embassy Belgrade in 2016 regarding his park’s interest in a #SisterPark relationship with #Serbia's #taranationalpark, since both parks are organized around prominent canyon features and have common management issues.
With assistance from U.S. Ambasador to Serbia Kyle Scott, Superintendent Noble flew to Serbia in 2017 to participate in a sister park arrangement signing ceremony with Tara National Park Director Dragić Karaklić. He spent several days exploring Tara National Park, located along the banks of the #DrinaRiver in eastern Serbia. In addition to the incredible natural beauty of the Tara region, the park is known for its efforts to protect the local #brownbear population and Bruce was able to learn about the challenges in protecting an animal that is still hunted across the river in a neighboring country.
The following year Bruce had the privilege to host several Serbians at #blackcanyonnps, providing them with an in-depth introduction to the park and park staff to learn more about specialized aspects of park management. His Serbian counterparts returned home with a desire to send some of their staff from Tara back to Black Canyon. Bruce found it is fascinating to have the opportunity to learn how two national parks in two different countries share management challenges that are similar in some cases and, in other cases, unique to each park. He found the experience hugely gratifying to play some small part in sharing the American national park idea with national park colleagues in Serbia. Bruce retired from #NPS in December of 2019.
