Carrie Besnette Hauser, PhD
Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser takes us inside the effort to breathe new life into parks and connect more Americans to public spaces. She is President & CEO of Trust for Public Land. Find her at TPL.org
Transcripción
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Everybody has a story. A grandfather that's taking a grandchild hunting or fishing, and as a result, it is such a unifying thing, and I don't know about you, but right now I'm searching for anything that is the antidote to the anxiety that I think we feel in a country that is just at odds with each other on just about every issue, and the outdoors is the sort of unifying factor.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt.
Maybe not surprisingly, there are few things I love more than wide open green spaces. It's where I find my zen. It's where I go to think deeply about things. But unfortunately, it's increasingly difficult for many Americans to get access to any green spaces, and this is where the Trust for Public Land comes in, building out green spaces where we are. Last year, Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser became the President and CEO of Trust for Public Land. She's an accomplished outdoorswoman. She summited Kilimanjaro and all 58 of the Colorado's Fourteeners, but she's also a conservationist to the core and a great leader. Today, Carrie and I dive into how public lands contribute to public health and are an essential part of our shared civic life. Let's jump into it.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Trust for Public Land is a little over 50 years old. TPL's fundamental mission is to make sure that we connect people to the outdoors, and part of the interest early on by the early founders was to find a way to blend conservation in both urban and rural communities. In fact, some of the founding DNA for TPL was urban gardens in Oakland, California and working with the Black Panthers. It was sort of environmental justice before that was sort of called that. Then that's really the fundamental definition of equity is to make sure that those that haven't had access have access. And so that means expanding opportunities for parks and open space, trails, anything that you can think of that would sort of define access to nature for everyone.
Ted Roosevelt V:
So why is that important? Why is it important for people to get access to green spaces and outdoor spaces?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
I'll speak to my own experience and I'll certainly maybe call upon some data that I think we probably all know, but I mean I grew up in the outdoors. I grew up right adjacent to the Coconino National Forest in northern Arizona. I remember my mom saying, go outside and come back for dinner and just exploring these amazing places. It was so important to me growing up. It was an experience I had with my dad, hiking all the trails. Those early experiences really framed what was important to me later. And here now I am in a role that is the CEO of Trust for Public Land, which that is our really basic mission. So those connecting dots, I think from a standpoint of being connected to the outdoors and then later caring about the outdoors and trying to engender many other people to also conserve and protect these really amazing places is part of it.
There's also just the basic health and mental health benefits that come with being in the outdoors. I mean, being in the outdoors lowers your cortisol levels. There's data that suggests you sleep better if you get outside. So the opportunity to connect more kids, more people to the outdoors, people that might be sort of landlocked in urban spaces, that local park to do a pickup basketball game or just swing on a swing or sit and watch birds. Those are all opportunities to contribute to health and mental health and connect people to these places that hopefully they care about and they will protect for future generations as well.
Ted Roosevelt V:
You mentioned some of the data and you sort of alluded to it, but can you talk to some of the urban areas, where you don't think about green spaces necessarily, why those spaces are important to develop and protect the ones that do exist in the urban spaces?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
If you and I think of what a public schoolyard looks like in this country, you might think of big sea of asphalt concrete, a chain link fence, and that is often what you'll find and there are 90,000 public schoolyards in our country. Certainly not all of them look like that, but many of them do. And many of them are in places that are considered heat sinks because of the nature of that asphalt and that concrete. You go to one of those places and you see kids around the edges of the park because that might be where a wall is or something that sort of resembles shade. And 90,000 public schoolyards---that's 2 million acres in this country. We have an incredible opportunity to sort of upgrade them and update them and actually have them help with climate resilience. I mean there was an example in Manhattan, a schoolyard that when Hurricane Sandy hit was literally flooded and underwater and we went in and helped that community and that school transform that schoolyard, and when Ida came in however many years later, there wasn't as much as a puddle.
So to transform those schoolyards into one places that actually are attractive for kids to go out and play. You remember when you go out and play with other kids, you learn to play together with somebody that you might not know and so you're really sort of fostering that kind of concept and that idea. And the last thing I'll say is that TPL's community schoolyards program, the deal with the school district and the deal with the school is that those schools will also agree once those schoolyards are transformed to also make sure that they're available to the community after hours and on weekends. And oftentimes you think of a public school, they close at three o'clock, right? They're not open on the weekends and you have all these spaces, particularly in rural communities or areas that might be the only park, and that's the opportunity really to open up nature and access to green space to places that really need those.
Ted Roosevelt V:
It was an interesting unlock for me personally with Trust for Public Land that my kids and I had been going to one of these redone school yards and I had no idea it was the Trust for Public Land. I mean, how many school yards has the Trust for Public Land worked on at this point?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
We're at about 350. Now, remember that there's 90,000 that we could probably get to, but I do think that the important thing to say is that we've done 200 in New York City alone and that includes all the boroughs. And I would give credit to, in that case, Mayor Bloomberg who really said, "Hey, this really makes a whole lot of sense." Government really leaned into that, school district really leaned into that, and as an early adopter and as an opportunity to sort of proofpoint what that can do is really important. And we have a number of school yards that we're transforming in collaboration with tribes around the country. I think that's also a really important story and a narrative to tell because again, in these tribal communities, that may be the place for kids to safely be outside, for those communities to really own those spaces, to have them really tie to cultural heritage. And we're just sort of getting started on those and it's a really great opportunity moving forward
Ted Roosevelt V:
To your point of: it's such great work, it has very positive health implications, community implications, learning implications for these students. And then when you talk about having kind of 350 out of 90,000 done---what are the limitations to really scaling this project up so that you can get closer to that 90,000 number?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Well, the first one perhaps is really obvious and that is its funds. They're about a million dollars each. They're often a partnership between the school district, the city. Certainly private philanthropy, if there are those out there listening and you want to make an impact, the benefits are tremendous. I mean, you just think about the health impacts and all the preventative costs to so many things that you could pay for down the line. If we actually really invest up front in kids and communities and these outdoor spaces, it'll save in the long run.
Ted Roosevelt V:
I'm curious what the feedback is both from the local community and local politicians after these projects are done.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
So far, in every single case that I've visited, it's only positive. We had a kickoff last week in Washington, D.C. with Maya Angelou Public Charter School, and it is this charter school that works with kids that are going into the correction systems, juvenile justice system, and that's where we will start our work in Washington D.C. and we have a lot of activity in Washington, D.C is a large national conservation organization. Clearly we're on the hill and we're trying to advocate for policy and all the things that you do obviously in our space and we don't do a lot of work in the district. I mean, you think about Washington D.C. as a really good example, like you have all these national parks. You have the National Mall, you have some of the world's most amazing park and open spaces and places that are sort of public lands, and yet the city of Washington, D.C.--- if you turn that coin over, it's a very, very different story. And a lot of those city parks and certainly those schoolyards have not had the same kind of investments. They don't mirror what you see when you walk down the Capitol Mall.
Ted Roosevelt V:
So there are two communities that Trust for Public Lands work very closely with, and that's the Black community and the tribal community. And those have each separate and distinct needs and wants from what's happening in a given moment in time. And the environmental community has not always worked well with tribal and indigenous communities. In fact, they've worked countercurrent with tribal and indigenous communities. Can you talk about how the Trust for Public Land is preserving land hand in hand with these tribal communities and how that's been different from some of the historic ways that America has dealt with conservation issues?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
I will tell you it's one of the things that really drew me to Trust for Public Land. And again, having grown up in northern Arizona---we're never probably going to remedy what you described in terms of treatment of tribes and loss of land. I do think what's important is the really genuine intent to work closely with tribes, to say, how could we possibly do this together and how could we think about returning land to tribes who sort of before modern day history cared for these lands long before any of us in modern day history. If you talk to a member of a tribe, most likely they will say it's not just land, it's everything. It's land, it's air, it's water. There's no distinction between humans and nature. And those really strongly held beliefs I think are ones that TPL believes in as well. I mean, that's the connection of people to these really amazing places. So we've worked really hard. We've had opportunities to acquire land and give those back to the tribes. Again, it's connecting people to these places. And in those cases it also has very close connections to local land stewardship, water stewardship, air stewardship, all of those things. So it's been really meaningful for me to see that work on the ground and know how intentional and how important it's to the heart of Trust for Public Land.
Ted Roosevelt V:
One of the things that I think is really interesting is that when Trust for Public Land does a lot of returning land to indigenous communities, and it often does it without putting a lot of rules on the land. When you put something into conservation, it's usually cloaked in tons of rules. That's part of the deal. And it does sometimes raise a concern where people think, well, you're giving this land back. It's meant to be conserved. How do you have confidence that it's going to be protected the way that you might want it to be?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
What's important here is these are sovereign nations, and if our intention is to return land to tribes, which are sovereign nations, that they should have the opportunity to determine how those lands and landscapes are utilized. It is access to the public in the sense that we are really returning access to those tribes in the way that they feel is best. So it's maybe just a different way of describing what access is.
Ted Roosevelt V:
And I think it's important to note that these tribes have thousands of years of conservation of land that far exceeds the history of Europeans in this country in conserving land.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
I mean, I think you've hit it right on the head. This is our opportunity to recognize that those that came after indigenous people who've been here for thousands of years, that they knew what they were doing and they've preserved and cared for these lands. And if you look at climate data and environmental data lands and stewardship under tribal nations in our country, those are some of the best well kept landscapes. They are the healthiest. And to respect that I think is a really important part of what Trust for Public Land does and that we will continue to do so. I mean, we have a project, a really large one in Maine called Wasotic, and that is a partnership with the Penobscott Nation, and we still have quite a bit of money to raise. $30 million is the sort of nut on that to be able to acquire the landscape and then return it to the tribe and it will have some public access because it's got a road that's really important to access to the Katahdin woods and waters, national monuments. It's all connected. There's no bright lines between these landscapes. And I think in most cases it will continue to be public access as long as it is something that's built into the partnership from the start.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Now, the trust for public land also works on Black history and culture, and the approach there is similar in that it's working with the community, working with the people that are impacted, but it's a completely different set of projects. There's a focus on activating public spaces. Talk about why this work is significant. And maybe just even before you do that, can you give a background or a broader sense of what this work is?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
I think it'd be important for your listeners to know that only 3% of public spaces or historical sites in our country tell the story of Black Americans. So that is why it's important to TPL. And you might think why does Trust for Pbulic Land preserve a building? Because we're a land conservation organization. But if you think about civil rights in our country, one of the places where that is the most important to recognize our history is in Topeka, Kansas, and it's the Brown versus Board of Education site. It's the Monroe School, and that was literally a two story brick and stone schoolhouse, a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement and a landmark of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools. And in 1993, it was deteriorating. There was a possibility of absolutely just demolishing it and removing it completely. And TPL went in and said, this is a really important public space.
It tells the history of our country. And we went in and helped preserve it and return it to the National Park Service. And if you go through that area, Topeka, Kansas, it's also an economic engine. People visit that site. So however many years later, it's been really important to do that. Martin Luther King National Historic Park in Atlanta---we were just there for a TPL National Board meeting. I mean, Dr. Martin Luther King is synonymous with civil rights in our country, and we're working on making sure that the home that he lived in and really worked out of in his adult life is preserved, and for that to be able to tell history. So everything that we do to elevate Americans whose history has not been told is really important. And it doesn't take away from any of the history that we have told and that we will continue to tell. It just is a more complete picture of how we've gotten to where we are in our country. And not all of it is rosy and not all of it is positive, and it is our history.
Ted Roosevelt V:
I mean, I think it's stunning. Just the two examples, the two sites: Martin Luther King's birthplace and the neighborhood around that, and Brown versus Board of Education--- I mean these are seminal things in American history and that they were not being protected already is somewhat shocking and evidence to the fact that the importance of this work. These are not periphery stories. These are central key important stories that are being preserved here.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Think about how many stories we don't even know about. I mean, I'll give you one more example and it's called "The Field," which is a burial site forgotten for over a century in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And two historians were searching for burial sites. And when our collective efforts converged, we were able to actually elevate that project into one that is also about Black history and culture. Many of those buried were industrial laborers, they were immigrants, they were a significant number of Black Chattanoogans. And we were also able to make sure that the history of that particular place was told, and forever will be told.
Ted Roosevelt V:
We're in this moment where almost every issue feels polarizing. In your work, talking to people, do these projects feel politically divisive in any way? Or do they stand out as one of the few truly nonpartisan issues?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Yeah, I mean, I would just say the latter part of your question is the answer. You ask anybody and the outdoors is the sort of unifying factor. Everybody has a story. Whether it's a grandfather that's taking a grandchild on their first hunting experience or fishing... And as a result, it is such a unifying thing. And I don't know about you, but right now I'm searching for anything that is the antidote to the anxiety that I think we feel in a country that is just at odds with each other on just about every issue. And the outdoor recreation, outdoor industry economy is a 1.2 trillion dollar a year economy. If nothing else, we need to fully staff all of our national parks, our national forests, our BLM lands... the National Park Service alone, that's a 55 billion dollar a year economic impact. It employs half a million people. So those things I think touch all of us.
The thing that I think I've probably talked about the most as a proof point since I've started in this role is the work that TPL does around conservation finance. And that is that we help local communities, local taxing districts, states, whatever it is, school districts--- run ballot measures in local settings to fund parks and trails and historic sites and conservation measures, floodplain mitigation, fire mitigation measures--- you pick what it is, right? And we had 23 of them on ballots all over the country in November of 2024, and every single one of them won 100%. Think about how many people are drawn like a magnet to their local park and how that really is part of our civic fabric and how people love green spaces and nature and parks, and ultimately they will absolutely vote for them, and they not only will vote for them, they will vote to help pay for those spaces.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Talking about ballot initiatives, it does beg the question, what's happening with the federal government right now and how that's impacting work like what TPL and others are doing?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
It does a lot. I think our team and everyone around this space is just bracing for what's next. TPL has a hundred projects right now that are in some form of limbo or stalled as it relates to federal funding. We have a number that have actually happened since this new administration has come in. So it's hard to tell. I think so many conservation organizations, so many organizations across the country, regardless of the sector, are just in this sort of state of waiting. We are certainly hopeful that these funds are released. And you think about Great American Outdoors Act that was passed in 2020 in the Roosevelt Room, and that actually permanently funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund in order---and that's no cost to taxpayers, by the way---and that is a permanent fund to help continue to fund these projects. And that's even one that's sort of been called into question. We have a huge trail project outside of Chattanooga that's stalled right now. We have a schoolyard project in rural Oregon. So those are some of the examples of the projects that we have in limbo right now. And we are certainly hopeful and will continue to advocate for all the reasons that those funds need to come forward and need to continue to come forward for communities to continue to do this really important work.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Arthur Brooks, the professor at Harvard who focuses on happiness, spent a lot of time studying political divides. The only unlock that he could find that you could bring in two politically ideological divergent people and have them have a civil, rational conversation and actually move the ball forward to find consensus was to first start the conversation about something--- a shared love. Could be their family, it could be anything. But if you first have a conversation about something not political, that it then opens the door to have more civil conversations around politics. And I believe that great open spaces or outdoors might be one of those things that we all share, that we can all sort of have consensus around. And if we can do it around those spaces, it might be a bigger unlock for the political divide in our country altogether right now. And so that's one of the reasons why I think the work that the Trust for Public Land is doing is so critically important because our National Parks are really our national heirlooms. I mean, we were the first country to create them. They're something that we passed down through the generations when they were created. They were created with the untold generations to come in mind. I mean, Theodore Roosevelt was literally thinking about our generation. He talks about our great great grandkids all the time. And that is literally me in this case, but it's all of us. And remembering that I think is really quite a uniting idea and concept. And why, again, I think the Trust for Public Land is just doing amazing work.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Yeah, we are at a really unique space. It's one that just brings me joy to think about being part of this dialogue. It's hard. I mean, it is hard to think that all the things you just described are at risk. And public lands include so many different varieties of spaces and places. We have to continue to remember that. And I think to your point, and Arthur Brooks' around happiness and bringing people together---just start with: tell me a story of being outdoors or tell me a story about a picnic. Tell me a story about seeing a rare bird for the first time. Whatever that experience is, we have all had them and they're really important and they're part of our individual history and our collective history as a country.
Ted Roosevelt V:
I love that, Carrie. What can listeners do? Obviously donate to the Trust for Public Land, but what can they do if they're feeling activated from this conversation.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
We in this country, there's sort of this, I think, reflex to be against something or to disagree or to take the other side. And as we discussed earlier, this is really a unifying place in our country. So stand up, engage for public parks, trails, public lands, and remember the narrative around public lands, lands being sort of this big bucket. This is national seashores, this is wildlife refuges, this is national forests. These are places that we need to advocate for. And just remind your elected officials that this is personal. It might be your local park, it might be a local trail. It might be that BLM landscape, it might be a wildlife refuge. It may be where you hunt or you fish or you do any form of outdoor recreation in this country. So engage for them, vote for them. When you see that local ballot measure, vote for those opportunities.
This is a time when I think it's really important. The more that our elected officials hear from us and the administration, the Secretary of the Interior, anybody that is making decisions--- I mean, I read an article today that 500 elected officials from Western states have together signed a request to the Department of the Interior and President Trump to moderate the dialogue around public lands and to really listen to these local communities, particularly rural communities, who's---in some cases, the entire economy for those small communities is entirely dependent on those public landscapes and the visitors that come to them. So we all need to stand up for our public lands. Regardless of who you are, you will make a difference.
Ted Roosevelt V:
We ask everybody on this podcast one final question: what is it to be a good citizen?
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Well, I would borrow a quote from Sir Edmund Hillary, who is the first known person to stand on the summit of Mount Everest, along with Tenzing Norgay. And the quote that he used, and I sort of modify it in different ways, so I probably won't get it exactly right because I've made it my own. And that is to care about children who are not your own.
It ties back to public lands. It ties back to all the things that we're thinking about. If you think about future generations, I mean, you talked about Teddy Roosevelt: we are the beneficiaries of something that he would never see actually realized, and he knew in his heart and soul, once you see these places and fall in love with them---you stand over the edge of the Grand Canyon. You stand at the edge of a national seashore and look into the ocean. You sit in a local park, you ride a bike along a trail. Those are things that are important for all of us. And it means that you're investing in children and landscapes and stories that are not your own, and that makes for a better country. And in my view, it makes for better citizenship.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Carrie, thank you very much for joining us today. I loved the conversation. I'm not surprised at all by loving the conversation, but I absolutely loved it. Thank you very much.
Carrie Besnette Hauser:
Thanks for the good questions. That's a wrap.
Ted Roosevelt V:
That's a wrap. Carrie, this was such a treat to talk to you, and I really appreciate you putting aside the time for Good Citizen. I'm sure many people listening understand that public lands are vital to our communities, but they may not have fully grasped the breadth of the work that the Trust for Public Land is doing. It's meaningful and important work, and I hope you continue to be able to make an impact on a large scale. Listeners, be sure to visit tpl.org to find out more about what's going on at the Trust for Public Land. And if you have a moment, please take the time to rate and review the podcast. It's a huge help. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts & Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.
