Volunteering on Public Lands in the USA

Federal and state public lands in the USA include:

• National Parks
• National Forests
• National Monuments
• Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
• National Geologic Trails
• National Historic Trails
• National Historic Sites
• US Fish & Wildlife
  
• State Parks
• State Forests
• State Fish & Wildlife
  

The most urgent volunteering need:

The majority of volunteering activities on public lands do not provide housing, but a few do. If they do, they will be quite clear about it on the official web site, but if you aren't sure, write and ask (but please check the web site thoroughly - no one likes to receive calls or emails with questions that are easily, obviously answered on the web site).

All opportunities require volunteers to be at a certain place and time, at their own expense, to volunteer - as in, if you are in a different state, you have to pay for your own transportation to the place the host organization wants volunteers to be in order to participate. Want to volunteer at a national park in Hawaii? You have to pay yourself to get yourself to Hawaii.

There are many different volunteering opportunities on federal and state public lands, and the opportunities change year-to-year. I've summarized the opportunities below and broken them into three different categories, but note the list is not comprehensive, not every site has all of these opportunities, and any opportunity can be longer or shorter than I've noted below - the time commitment required from assignment to assignment, and site-to-site, can vary GREATLY:

Requires several weeks / long term commitment:

• Campground and day use site hosts (you usually must provide your own hard top camper to live in, but your camping and entrance fees are waived)
• Fire lookouts (offers free accommodation, and some of these are fully paid, short-term jobs)
• Visitor center staffing
• Interpretive volunteers (leading short educational programs, leading tours, etc.)
• Leading or helping to run events or projects, like National Public Lands Day, a Citizens Science project,
• General office help (filing)

Requires a few or several days commitment (some assignments provide simple accommodation, like free tent camping, but you may be required to provide your own tent, bedding, etc.):

• Building and restoring trails
• Wildlife and plant monitoring and inventory
• Archeology

Usually can be just one-day commitments:

• Noxious weed identification and removal
• Participating in Citizen Science projects

Volunteering roles and activities on public lands are managed and organized by different groups. Some projects are lead by federal or state and employees and some are lead by nonprofit organizations, often called "Friends of...", in partnership with federal or state offices.

To find volunteering opportunities on USA public lands, start with volunteer.gov, an official web site for volunteering at the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the US Geological Survey (USGS), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. You can search by type of activity, by whether or not accommodations are provided, by area, by agency and more.

You can also use your favorite search engine, such as Google or Bing, to search the name of a national park, national forest, national monument and each of these phrases as a separate search:

• volunteer
• wildlife monitoring
• archeology
• noxious weed removal
• citizen science

So, for instance:

• Mammoth Cave National Park volunteer
• Mammoth Cave National Park citizen science

You can also make a list of all the public lands within your geographic area. For instance, if you are in Oregon, you can search each of these terms to find all public lands in Oregon:

• Oregon National Parks
• Oregon National Forests
• Oregon National Monuments
• Oregon Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
• Oregon National Geologic Trails
• Oregon National Historic Trails
• Oregon National Historic Sites
• Oregon State Parks
• Oregon State Forests

Then pick a specific park where you might want to volunteer and manually search the site, or go back to your favorite search engine and look for the name of the public land and the word volunteer. For instance:

• Tillamook State Forest Volunteer
• Siuslaw National Forest Volunteer

Also look at state fish and wildlife department web sites for volunteering opportunities.

There's also friends-of groups, like Discover Your Forest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the discovery of the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests and Crooked River National Grassland in Central Oregon.

To find camp hosting opportunities, which allow you to live for free in exchange for your service for several weeks or an entire season on a public land, use these searches in your favorite search engine (remember: you usually must have your own hard-top camper to apply to be a camp host, and you will often be required to provide photos and copies of your title for proof)

• public lands camp host
• National Park camp host
• Siuslaw National Forest camp host (or whatever public land in which you are interested)

Other hosts

Here are some nonprofit organizations that often have overnight volunteering opportunities that take place on public lands. Some that take many days:

• HistoriCorps engages volunteers to save historic places across the United States, many of them in national parks, state parks and other public lands, from settlers' log cabins in expansive wildernesses to architecturally-rich homes in deeply historic urban environments. HistoriCorps provides all meals, tools, training, personal safety equipment, and materials. The most popular trips fill up VERY quickly - sometimes within hours of being announced.

• Passport in Time engages volunteers to preserve the nation's history. Volunteers contribute to vital environmental and historical research on public lands. Their participation helps not only to protect and conserve the sites, memories, and objects that chronicle our collective past, but also to understand the human story in North America and ensure that story is told to our children and grandchildren.

• The American Hiking Society sponsors several excellent volunteer excursions every year, constructing or rebuilding footpaths, cabins and shelters in some of the USA's most beautiful parks and historic sites.

• Sierra Club Outings help to state and federal land agencies. Service trips range from helping with research projects at whale calving grounds in Maui to assisting with archaeological site restoration in New Mexico.

 
 
 
 
Suggested books:

 
Volunteering: The Ultimate Teen Guide (It Happened to Me)

 
Doing Good Together: 101 Easy, Meaningful Service Projects for Families, Schools, and Communities

 
Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others

 
Children as Volunteers: Preparing for Community Service