Project overview: Recruit and train a Tribal intern who will develop a project alongside subject-matter experts and affiliated Tribes to address hazardous-fuels mitigation and invasive-species control.  

How your support helps: Members of Yosemite National Park’s associated Tribes have long lived and worked in the park, mostly as laborers and service workers. It’s time they also made up a larger percentage of the employees of the National Park Service (NPS).  

The demographics of the Yosemite workforce — and the workforce of the NPS as a whole — do not reflect the rich diversity of American society today. This disparity affects how the NPS is perceived, making it difficult for the agency to hire and retain BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) staff and connect with historically underserved communities.  

In 2023 and 2024, Conservancy donors funded the hiring of Tribal interns with connections to the seven associated Tribes of Yosemite within Yosemite’s Resource Management and Science division. These project years resulted in workforce benefits to the park — fostering stronger relationships with Tribal communities and contributing to park-wide diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) initiatives — and personal benefits for the intern — leadership training, resource certificates, and work experience. 

This year: In 2025, the Tribal intern will develop a project in consultation with wilderness subject-matter experts and affiliated Tribes to address hazardous-fuels mitigations and invasive-species control in remote park locations. The intern will also assist with grant writing, reporting, and project planning, and have the opportunity to explore and cross-train with other projects and branches within the National Park Service. 

Project partners: Yosemite National Park and Great Basin Institute 

Irene Vasquez

Resources Management and Science, Yosemite National Park

Project Notes

“A diverse and inclusive workforce helps us better meet our mission in protecting natural and cultural resources, and in interpreting stories and history that have been excluded or misrepresented.”