The National Parks Foundation was founded in 1967 to support the unmet needs of our national parks. Recently, an anonymous donor donated $40 million for employee housing at Yellowstone National Park. This was the result of the tireless effort of Will Shafroth, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation and his team.

As President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Park Foundation, Will Shafroth leads the organization’s work to protect our national parks and connect people to these great places. Will oversees a staff of more than 125 that work to raise and deploy funds to support programs and projects in national parks. Will works closely with National Park Service leadership to ensure our missions remain aligned. He reports to a 30-member board of directors with whom Will remains closely connected to advance the organization’s mission.

On this episode we will have a conversation with Dr. Bron Taylor. Bron has written a compelling book, Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality, and The Planetary Future. Bron Taylor's scholarly work engages the quest for environmentally sustainable societies. We will explore a wide range of groups-radical environmental activists, lifestyle-focused bioregionalists, surfers, New Agers involved in "ecopsychology," and groups that hold scientific narratives as sacred.

Jon Jarvis, former director of the U.S. National Park Service and his brother Destry have written a compelling book, National Parks Forever: Fifty Years of Fighting and a Case for Independence. In the book they argue the case for making the National Park Service an independent agency, similar to the Smithsonian Institution. In this episode you will hear about their combined 90 years of working to protect national parks and secure the resources necessary to effectively manage the parks. They will also share how the politicization of the National Parks threaten their future.

Jon Jarvis is currently the Chairman of the Board UC Berkeley Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity. Destry Jarvis currently serves as the vice president of US/ICOMOS, the US National Committee for the International Council on Monuments and Sites, better known as the World Heritage Program.