From taking home your trash to volunteering, there are simple ways to make a difference

by Jennifer Bain

The first two times I realized I could volunteer in national parks, it was as easy as signing up to remove invasive plants and clear room for native species to flourish. I’ll never forget how deeply satisfying it was to remove lemongrass in Antigua and Himalayan ginger in Hawaiʻi. Both times I left the public lands a tiny bit better than when I arrived and got to spend time with passionate locals for what felt like behind-the-scenes experiences.

Since then, I’ve planted trees in two Canadian national parks and removed marine debris from a Texas park, and I’m watching for chances to do bumblebee monitoring or something related to turtles (tracking, nest protection or hatchling emergence).

“If that means helping in your local park — whether it’s national, state, local — consider helping out as well as enjoying it, that way they’ll be able to continue so everybody can enjoy it for the future,” Braunlich says.

Along with Parks Canada’s Marie-Hélène Brisson and the U.S. National Park Service’s Jessica Ferracane, we discussed easy ways women can support parks, including taking home our trash, staying on trails, following park rules and volunteering.

Let’s dig a little deeper into those ideas.

How to help national parks

1. Take your trash home

Just because you see a trash can, doesn’t mean you should always use it — especially now as cash-strapped U.S. parks are grappling with budget cuts and staffing challenges.

“Many people go to parks and they think of it as if it’s their house where you use something, you have trash, you put it in the trash can and somebody picks it up,” said Braunlich. “That is a burden for national parks. It is so easy to take your trash home with you, to think about it as — in a way — this is your home. How would you want your home to be treated?”

I’ve followed “leave no trace” principles on hikes, but it never occurred to me to ignore designated bins. I honestly thought using them helped keep people employed.

But then I remembered hearing a woman complain to a ranger in Washington, D.C. about how Anacostia Park’s trash bins were always overflowing. I had just seen how big family gatherings created mountains of trash and realized that simply providing bigger bins could be a catch-22.

On a float trip down the Buffalo National River in Arkansas with the Buffalo Outdoor Center (BOC) this year, I took note of NPS river regulations. All vessels must have a mesh litter bag. No glass containers. All cooler lids must be fastened. All beverages must be in a koozie or floating holder. There were also signs dubbing this a trash-free park.

“Pack in, pack out,” they said. “Please recycle and lend a hand. Leaving trash prohibited. $200 fine.”

I call BOC founder Mike Mills, the microtrash guy. When we hiked together, he picked up the tiny corners of wrappers that people throw on the ground and tucked these bits of microtrash into a Ziploc bag. He even carries a sponge to rub off graffiti made by using small rocks to write on big rocks.

2. Stay on marked trails

When parks ask you nicely to stay on marked trails, it’s not to control you. It’s so you don’t disturb the wildlife, cause soil erosion or trample fragile vegetation.

Take time to read interpretive signage, and you might learn exactly what you’re protecting, like I did on the popular Skyline Trail at Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia. “Sensitive habitat. Please stick to the boardwalk,” signs said along an area of barrens with a special microclimate and rare plants like golden heather. “Ouch! This is the only place I grow in all of Cape Breton.”

Another time in Grasslands National Park, while doing the Valley of 1000 Devils hike, I knew that closures were because they were rerouting the path and giving vegetation a chance to regrow.

If you don’t behave, enforcement officers may have to waste their precious time dealing with you.

3. Control your dog

Speaking of law enforcement rangers, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been with them (on both sides of the border) when they’ve had to tell people to follow the rules and leash their dogs.

“Wildlife are unpredictable,” Parks Canada explains. “An off-leash dog can trigger aggressive behaviour from predators like bears, wolves or coyotes. Predators see free-running, off-leash dogs as competition or prey, and may either attack the dog or follow the dog back to its owners or other people. After repeat encounters with off-leash dogs, wildlife can lose their natural wariness of humans and become a public safety risk.”

If you’re bringing four-legged friends to a park, be a responsible pet owner.

4. Become a citizen scientist

I swear by the iNaturalist mobile app as a place to upload photos and get crowdsourced help identifying plants and animals. If you upload your geotagged observations, you will generate data for science and conservation.

iNaturalist — an independent non-profit organization based in the U.S. — is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature. Plenty of Parks Canada sites have their own “projects” set up on the platform.

Another project I’ve seen in both Canada and Spain — at the Atlantic Islands of Galicia Maritime-Terrestrial National Park — involves taking photos so scientists can monitor coastal changes.

Canada’s Coastie initiative is led by the University of Windsor in collaboration with Parks Canada and is based on the CoastSnap program developed in Australia. All you have to do is put your phone in the “Coastie cradle” at 30 spots in 10 sites, take a photo and follow instructions on how to share it through a QR code or social media using the #Coastie hashtag.

“Every Coastie matters,” says Parks Canada.

5. Volunteer with the U.S. National Park Service

It’s dead easy to Google the name of the park you’re going to and “volunteer.” U.S. national parks often have Friends groups — both official and unofficial — and they’re a great resource for volunteer opportunities.

“There are far more volunteers helping national parks than there are paid staff helping national parks,” said Braunlich.

When I helped cut invasive ginger at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, it was with the Stewardship at the Summit program led by Paul and Jane Field. For three fascinating hours, we clipped ginger in a native Hawaiian rainforest and put it in piles that park staff would later treat with herbicide.

“The sad truth is we’ll never be able to get every single invasive plant out of the rainforest, but this definitely makes a dent and prevents it from spreading,” said Ferracane, the park’s public affairs specialist.

In February, I flew to Corpus Christi, Texas, to visit Padre Island National Seashore for the 30th annual Billy Sandifer Big Shell Beach Cleanup. You head to the park before dawn and jump in a local’s four-wheel-drive vehicle to drive to a remote section of beach and pick up marine debris.

The Friends of Padre has removed 1,625 tons of trash and cleaned 405 miles of beach over the years, thanks to 17,500 volunteers. But when this year’s cleanup was rescheduled due to a cold snap and high tides, I filled a free yellow mesh bag with trash and vowed to try to make it to next year’s beach cleanup.

6. Volunteer with Parks Canada

“In Canada’s national parks, we do have volunteer programs as well,” Brisson, director of visitor experiences, said during the webinar. “That said, they’re much smaller than our workforce. We do have a different model than the U.S. and a lot of unionized staff.”

Again, just Google the park you’re interested in and “volunteering” to see what your options are.

In Ontario’s Thousand Islands National Park, I spent half a day with the “Mending Ground” team, who are part of a national project to plant two billion trees across Canada by 2031 to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

In Terra Nova National Park, I learned that even a few minutes of work can make a difference. Everyone is invited to join the Newfoundland and Labrador park’s weekly Plant-A-Tree program — also part of Canada’s 2 Billion Trees commitment — in July and August. I planted a single balsam fir seedling, customized an aluminum tag and got a souvenir certificate.

7. Take a guided volunteer tour

JourneyWoman is co-hosting an all-women volunteer trip to South Africa in September 2025 to several national parks with non-profit Blue Sky Society Trust. During the trip, which is fully booked, volunteers will meet and interact with conservationists and participate in important, impactful conservation and humanitarian work, culminating on World Rhino Day on September 22. JourneyWoman CEO Carolyn Ray, who is hosting the trip, hopes that it will become an annual event.  Learn more here.

The non-profit Conservation VIP puts together groups of volunteers who want to “travel with purpose” and help public lands. They always ask what kind of help might be needed and then create programs that benefit the destination and give travellers something fun and meaningful to do.

They’ve done trail work in Patagonia, Machu Picchu, Alaska and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They’ve helped giant tortoises in Galapagos and nesting sea turtles in Costa Rica, and done rewilding work in Scotland. In California’s popular Yosemite National Park, they’ve slept in a campground reserved for volunteers while working. Soon they’ll be supporting butterfly research in Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.

“It’s a really kind of fun way to get to know some of these parks, and you also get this great sense of “Hey, I’m giving back. I’m not just coming here and leaving my trash for somebody else to pick up. I’m not just taking a picture to post on Instagram. I’m actually coming here and seeing the place, having a good time, and I go home and say not only did I have a good time, but I did the right thing. I did something good for the park,” said Braunlich. “So it’s pretty transformative to people, I think.”

A final thought on how to help national parks

One last thing you can do to help your favourite parks?

“Share,” said Brisson, “because sharing your experiences will help us build stewards of the future, because we need to protect these beautiful places forever.”

Learn more and watch our webinar on National Parks from May 2025 featuring Conservation VIP, Hawai’i’ Volcanoes National Park and Parks Canada. 

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