CNHA: A friend to public lands

A FRIEND TO PUBLIC LANDS

Canyonlands Natural History Association is a nonprofit partner for southeastern Utah’s special places and the people who love them

Written by Sharon Sullivan

WHEN YOU BUY A SOUVENIR, T-SHIRT, GUIDEBOOK OR ANY OTHER ITEM FROM A NATIONAL PARK STORE OR PUBLIC LANDS INFORMATION CENTER, YOU’RE NOT ONLY ACQUIRING A MEMENTO. YOU’RE ALSO SUPPORTING FREE PROGRAMS AND BROCHURES FOR THE PUBLIC, OUTDOOR EDUCATION FOR LOCAL YOUTH, THE PURCHASE OF TELESCOPES TO VIEW PARKS’ NIGHTTIME SKIES, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, AND MORE.

“We donate back to public lands over a million dollars a year,” says Sam Wainer, operations manager for Canyonlands Natural History Association (CNHA) – one of 70 “cooperating associations” that serve as nonprofit partners for public land agencies. These nonprofit partners are called by different names – for example, there’s Grand Canyon Conservancy, Yellowstone Forever, and Zion National Park Forever Project. Cooperating associations support parks, and the public’s enjoyment of public lands by funding educational, scientific, and interpretive efforts.

CNHA serves not only Arches and Canyonlands national parks; it also supports Hovenweep, Natural Bridges, and Bears Ears national monuments; Cedar Mesa and Grand Gulch Primitive Area; the Manti-La Sal National Forest; and the information centers in Blanding and Moab. “The bulk (of funds) goes to the (parks), where most of the money is generated,” Wainer says.

Tourism to the region has exploded since Wainer began working for CNHA 25 years ago. There were 700,000 annual visitors in the late 1990s, compared to well over 2 million people these days. Wainer continually develops new designs for products, as well as educational gifts like kids’ puzzles. His intention is to foster an emotional, lasting connection between people and their public lands.

Top: The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. [Colin D. Young/shutterstock.com] Opposite page, top: The Arches National Park bookstore. [Courtesy CNHA] Middle: Moab Information Center's Amy Mayer assists visitors Vicki and Dan Shaw of Montrose, Colorado. [Photo by Murice D. Miller] Bottom: A Student Conservation Intern talks with a young visitor. [NPS/Andrew Kuhn]

The MIC

The Moab Information Center (MIC) – an essential stop for visitors to Moab – also serves local community members by offering free lectures for the public from April through November. Operated by CNHA, the MIC is located on the corner of Center and Main streets, and is a one-stop-shop for information about Arches and Canyonlands, and all southeast Utah public lands – including Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service property. Staff will point you in the right direction regarding camping, hiking trails, tours, river rafting, jet boating, mountain biking trails, plus rules associated with public land usage. Visitors can also learn about local restaurants, hotels and downtown businesses.

Prior to the pandemic, the MIC averaged 900-1,000 visitors per day during the busy tourist season. While the number of visitors slowed during 2020, it increased gradually in 2021 to an average of 600-700 per day, says Sharon Kienzle, MIC manager for the past 10 years. Travelers often come in for advice on vacation-planning in the region, including tips for visiting places as far away as the Grand Canyon. “People will come in and say ‘I have five days’ and want to know how best to use it,” Kienzle says. “We give information on how to do things in the correct order (to avoid unnecessary backtracking) – we get that a lot.”

The MIC also provides information on road conditions and weather. And, you’ll find postcards, guidebooks, maps and other high-quality gifts and souvenirs for sale – proceeds of which go to support public lands in southeast Utah.

The MIC’s free lecture series is attended by both visitors and locals alike. Park rangers, visiting scientists, and other experts present a range of topics including wildflowers of the area, rock art, dinosaurs, bats, the night sky, Native American archaeological sites, and the history of how the national parks were created.

Outdoor Education

Children in Grand and San Juan counties are fortunate to attend school near national parks and CNHA, which funds field trips for students in kindergarten through sixth grades. At Arches and Canyonlands, kids learn core science curriculum in the real world. Students learn subjects like geology

and desert ecology first-hand, and become aware of air quality issues after visiting an air monitoring station at Island in the Sky in Canyonlands. And, they gain confidence in their physical abilities by hiking in the parks.

CNHA pays for supplies, transportation to the parks, and the stipends of Student Conservation Association (SCA) interns who help with the field trips. “We’re teaching science in the parks,” Wainer says. “Every ten days there’s a new field trip.”

High school students also benefit from living near public lands and an active cooperating association. Teenagers from both counties can earn money and valuable experience by working in CNHA’s main office or warehouse, updating social media, writing blogs about MIC’s free lectures, or helping with the National Park Service’s Junior Ranger program. In addition to earning an hourly wage, student interns receive a $1,500 scholarship for each year of internship. Some students work with CNHA for two or three years.

“We couldn’t do what we do with local school kids without CNHA – we’re really lucky to have them as a partner,” says Angie Richman, chief of interpretation for Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Education and Visitor Services. Richman credits CNHA executive director Roxanne Bierman for much of the ongoing success of these programs. “[She] is really forward thinking.”

Bierman worked for the Grand Teton Association for 25 years, before coming to Moab five years ago to direct CNHA. “Canyonlands Natural History Association allows me to combine a passion for our unique public lands in southeast Utah with an opportunity to work closely with our visitors to ensure they have a quality visit, leaving with fond memories of this beautiful area and a desire to support public lands and open spaces,” Bierman says.

Dark Skies

Richman is the official liaison between CNHA and each of the four parks in the Southeast Utah Group. She coordinates and presents aid requests from each of the four national park units to the CNHA board of directors. For example, CNHA, in partnership with the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands Parks helped Arches to achieve and celebrate its International Dark Sky Park status in 2019 – the final national park in the Southeast Group to do so.

To mark the occasion, around that year’s autumn equinox, Arches hosted a special astronomy program. Hundreds of community members and out-of-town visitors attended the event. CNHA provided telescopes and rangers gave presentations on the constellations during the three-hour event, held on both a Friday and Saturday night. CNHA also paid to bring International Dark Sky Association Executive Director Ruskin Hartley to Arches, where he presented the then-superintendent Kate Cannon with a special plaque designating Dark Sky Park status.

“It was a big deal for him to come out; CNHA paid for his travel,” Richman recalls. Afterward, shuttle buses (paid for by CNHA) transported attendees to Panorama Point for some star-gazing. CNHA provided some of the telescopes and gave out free red lights – superior to regular white lights for preserving night vision. Astronomy books and special T-shirts were for sale at the event – proceeds of which went back to the parks.

In 2021, CNHA replaced broken water fountains in the Needles District of Canyonlands – a task that would have taken years to accomplish if tackled internally, Richman says. National parks are in “dire need” of funding, says Cathy Bonde, chairwoman of the 10-member CNHA board of directors. Thanks to CNHA, campground water fountains were fixed, and a non-freezing water filling station was installed at the Visitor Center, making drinking water available there during the wintertime.

Top: Canyonlands Natural History Association's Executive Director Roxanne Bierman. [Courtesy CNHA] Bottom: Local children enjoy a field trip made possible by support from Canyonlands Natural History Association. [NPS/Kirsten Kearse] Opposite page: A ranger adjusts a telescope during Arches' international dark sky park celebration. [NPS/William Pedro]

Scientific Research

Tim Graham is an ecologist and independent researcher in Moab who studies insects and pollinators in the La Sal Mountains. Graham painstakingly collects samples from areas where nonnative mountain goats have denuded large areas of vegetation, dislodged rocks and disturbed soils – destroying plant and bug habitat. He also studies the impact of climate change and its effect on insects and pollinators. “Having this information can help guide (land) management,” he says.

Another researcher, Brian Davis, teaches anatomy to medical students at the University of Louisville in Kentucky during the school year, while in the summertime he chisels out fossils of ancient “tiny critters” from rocks in the Moab area. He’s hoping to bring local schoolchildren out in the field to help search for the 150-million-year-old fossils. His collections are housed together in a public trust and are available for research purposes, he says. These resources are “another rationale for preserving public lands,” he notes.

Both of these scientific endeavors are just two of several projects funded by CNHA’s Discovery Pool research grants given each year (except during 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down visitation to the region, resulting in fewer purchases at park stores, thus, less money for research projects).

Cooperating associations like CNHA developed early in National Park Service history in response to visitor needs for inexpensive guide leaflets, pictures, maps and other interpretive literature. The first such organization was the Yosemite Museum Association, founded in 1920 to develop a museum and visitor contact station in Yosemite Valley. By 1931, cooperating associations were established in Zion, and Rocky Mountain national parks, and in Yellowstone in 1933. Canyonlands Natural History Association was founded in 1967.

In addition to sales from its retail outlets and online, CNHA funding comes from memberships and private donations. Since its inception the organization has donated more than $18.5 million to its public land partners’ educational and research efforts. In 2020, CNHA’s contributions totaled more than $1.5 million.

For more information or to sign up for the CNHA monthly E-newsletter visit: cnha.org. n