Centennial Challenge

The Centennial Challenge is a 10-year plan to invigorate national parks and to:

• Engage all Americans in preserving our heritage, history and natural resources    though philanthropy and partnerships;

• Reconnect people with their parks; and

• Build capacity for critical park operations and facilities, and sustain them through the    next century.

A centerpiece of the President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2008 National Park Service budget, the Centennial Initiative is designed to provide up to $3 billion for investment in our system of national parks, trails, memorials and historic sites. The first order of business for the Centennial Initiative is to select signature projects and programs—and establish specific performance goals—to help prepare the national parks for another century of conservation, preservation and enjoyment. Click here for more information.

ATBI Signature Project Proposal

We propose the ATBI Alliance as a "signature project" for the Centennial Challenge.

While the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has been in existence for more than a century, we still do not know the full extent of species that exist in these special protected places. Environmental Stewardship Through Discovery is a national project using all-taxa biodiversity inventories (“ATBIs”) to explore the undiscovered frontiers of diversity within our parks. ATBIs are commonly defined as a partnership between citizens, scientists, and agency managers documenting park biodiversity and this project expands the concept of a coordinated and exciting effort to discover park biodiversity by the 100th birthday of the NPS.

We propose a network of ATBIs (Alliance) in national parks and affiliated areas which enhances the ongoing inventory and monitoring (I&M) program by examining new organisms and soliciting external funds. This project will support national team coordination, ten rotating ATBI student scholars, and competitive seed-grants to encourage external funds from local partners. The Alliance is designed to build on local efforts and provide for the engagement of the public in the excitement of new discoveries within parks and develop the first nationally representative, scientifically credible tool to measure the health and resilience of US parks. Such work will support the ongoing national I&M program and enhances that program by involving an increasingly diverse public. The national effort will use a phased approach starting with structured sampling that highlights new technologies and explores natural and social issues impacting parks like invasive species, urbanization, climate change, population growth, and wildfire. Local ATBIs will be supported by seed-grants, taxonomic services, spatial data, database standards, and public outreach. This project will be nationwide and will encourage the exploration of advanced technology in the application of science through scholarship. This project will make NPS the national and global leader in biodiversity conservation by 2016.

Listening Sessions

President Bush requested Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne and National Park Service Director Mary Bonar listen to comments from the public and partners on priorities and issues related to the Centennial Initiative. Click here for a list of locations, dates and times of upcoming listening sessions in the Intermountain West (3/20/07-4/2/07). Please attend the nearest meeting to express the importance of biodiversity inventory, monitoring and conservation.