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Statutory Mandate

The State Parks Act [G.S. 113-44.8]

“The State of North Carolina offers unique archaeologic, geologic, biological, scenic, and recreational resources. These resources are part of the heritage of the people of the State. The heritage of a people should be preserved and managed by those people for their use and for the use of their visitors and descendants.”

Mission

The Mission of the Natural Resources Program is to ensure the unique natural resources of the State Parks System are protected from degradation.

Overview

The Division of Parks and Recreation is responsible for the protection of the natural and cultural resources within the state parks system. The division's Natural Resources Program provides field staff, planning staff and construction staff with technical expertise on issues such as resource stewardship, scientific research, environmental review and compliance, and landscape planning.

This responsibility pervades all of the division's activities, from field operations and interpretive programming to the planning and construction of park facilities. The protection of these resources is mandated by the North Carolina Constitution and the State Parks Act, and is directed by the division’s Natural Resource Management Policy.

The ecosystems and cultural features protected by the state parks system often represent the highest quality examples of the state's natural landscape cultural heritage. In many cases, these ecosystems and cultural features are also among the most threatened. The primary goal of natural resource management is to minimize human impacts on the natural environment and to ensure the long-term protection of state parks as intact, naturally evolving ecosystems. The primary goal of cultural resource management is to protect and preserve historically significant features.

The division's Resource Management Program provides field staff, planning staff and construction staff with technical expertise on issues such as resource stewardship, scientific research, environmental review and compliance, and landscape planning.

Summary

North Carolina State Parks accomplishes the mission of its Narural Resources Program by engaging and or coordinating the following activities:

• Stewardship of Natural and Cultural Resources: The Natural Resources Program works with park field staff and appropriate agencies and institutions to ensure that the natural and cultural resources of the parks are managed in a systematic, consistent, and professional manner that places resource protection above exploitation. Stewardship activities include prescribed fire, exotic plant management, restoration, control of nuisance animals, protection of rare species, correction of erosion and sedimentation problems and restoration of natural communities and systems.


• Scientific Research/Inventory and Monitoring: The long-term goal of the State Park’s research program is to provide measurable, repeatable, and objective analysis of each park’s resources through scientific studies ranging from simple descriptive inventories to complex, ecosystem-scale analyses.


• Environmental Review and Compliance: The Natural Resources Program works with planners, designers, park field staff and construction staff to avoid adverse impacts from facilities development on the parks resources. Natural Resources Staff are responsible for conducting field evaluations and providing scientific information to support review and evaluation of all proposed park construction projects. The goal of the environmental review and compliance process is to ensure that the projects are located to avoid environmentally sensitive areas and that they are designed and implemented to minimize secondary impacts.


• Park Protection: North Carolina State Parks are only a fraction of the greater landscape. As a result, activities on the landscape beyond park boundaries are increasingly affecting the ecological integrity of the parks. The Natural Resources staff work to protect the ecological viability of the parks by encouraging the environmental compatibility of activities on surrounding lands.


• Resource Management Training: The overall goal of the natural resources training program is to ensure the best possible protection, preservation and restoration of state park natural and cultural resources.

Current Major Initiatives

• Exotic Species Management: The Natural Resources Program is currently working with a number of agencies, universities and cooperative extension program to control exotic species in the state park system. Exotic species are seen as one of the greatest threats to rare species, high quality communities and biodiversity.


• Prescribed Fire Program: With the hiring of a fulltime ecological burn coordinator the Division is on the verge of make huge strides in our prescribed fire program. This new position will assist in the coordination of training for field staff, development of new burn plans and assistance to a number of parks where their burn programs have faltered due to lack of staffing.


• Inventory of Natural Resources Needs: Over the past several years the Natural Resources Program has been working with field staff to develop a natural resources database. The database contains a number of projects that will need to be accomplished to ensure resource protection in the park system. In addition, the database will assist in setting priorities for the Natural Resources Program.

N.C. Division of Parks & Recreation • 1615 MSC • Raleigh N.C. 27699-1615 (919) 733-4181