(playful music) (gentle music) - [Narrator 1] And somehow out of the realization of these truths by the nation, by the states, these lands will come beckoning, always the tired, the lonely, the worried to the retreat that will enfold them in the enchanting landscape, the magic atmosphere of shining waters and leafy shade.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) - [Narrator 2] Our journey begins at Washington's headquarters, where America's first significant conservation effort took root, setting a precedent for future preservation.

- Washington's headquarters is remarkable because it's the first publicly-owned historic site in the United States.

It's the first time that a state purchases a property basically to preserve and commemorate it.

With Washington's headquarters, obviously, a lot of the events of the revolution and the end of the revolution, you know, found Washington in Newburgh, New Windsor Cantonment, staying in the Hasbrouck House in Newburgh, the house had become somewhat endangered by the mid 19th century.

And there was a local outcry to save this important piece of our revolutionary war heritage and our connection to Washington.

Just responded to the impulse that, hey, this is important.

This is a powerful sort of place.

People need to see this and they should see it in a way that isn't the interest of industry and commerce.

Were not put ahead of the interest of basically the everyday citizen.

(birds chirping) - [Narrator 2] This early initiative sparked a movement that reached a defining moment at Niagara Falls.

In the early 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution reshaped the landscape, visionaries and philanthropists alike recognized the urgent need for conservation.

Their foresight culminated in the establishment of our nation's first state park at Niagara Falls, a testament to the enduring balance between nature and human stewardship.

- Niagara Falls slightly later becomes a park in the 1880s.

It's our first state park.

It's the first time a piece of land is set aside really just for the conservation of the natural scenery.

That's really being driven by the conservation movement by Frederick Law Olmsted, one of our great landscape architects.

He visits Niagara Falls with some associates, and he basically sees a blighted landscape that's been scarred by industry and by private development.

And it spurs this free Niagara movement.

There were mills, cheek by jowl.

It was just not a very pretty picture for a place of such remarkable inspiration.

It was being really used for commercial and industrial purposes.

That those interests were being put ahead of the public interest.

Saying that this is a place not only of state national, but international renown, that we need to do better here.

We need to make this publicly accessible.

We need to remove the blights.

And basically, this is the beginning.

This is the beginnings of our history, our parks movement, and really the coalescing of a conservation ethic that will continue then into the next century.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 2] From the iconic landscapes that shape our nation's character to hidden gems tucked away in remote corners, New York State Park Service, both sanctuary and classroom, offering spaces for adventure, as well as reflection.

- We never give ourselves a true rest.

When it is, it's really just an escape.

And many people, they look to their phones or their devices or they look for forms of a recharge that really is not a recharge.

What do we do for our brain, our mental selves?

And that's what parks are.

They're rejuvenation.

They're refreshing ourselves.

They reinvigorate us in core ways that we need these days, especially in an on-demand world.

- I think public space, and maybe parks in particular are, we just take 'em for granted.

They're there.

I mean, we take a lot of the wonderful things we have in our environment that make our world wonderful for granted.

The fact is that there's pressure on all of these public resources on our parks, on our public spaces.

They give us so much and we're really not aware of it.

And therefore, sometimes, we don't fight for them and we don't protect them.

(gentle music) Something like our state public park system is integral to our society.

It helps us sustain ourselves, not just the ecology, but sustain ourselves socially, culturally as a people.

I might even argue politically in terms of representing a wide range of people coming together and join things together.

And there's these moments of connection, of feeling that we feel like one, that we feel like we belong.

And then of course, there are all the stories we've collected over all these years.

- [Narrator 2] The story of New York's protected land stretches back far beyond the formation of the State Council of Parks in 1924.

From Letchworth State Parks grand vistas to the tranquil shores of the St. Lawrence, these lands tell tales of preservation.

- What we really had in the later 19th and early 20th century is we had a sort of un-unified system of parks and sites, special places that been set aside often by private philanthropists.

We look at Letchworth State Park.

William Pryor Letchworth basically made it his life mission to preserve that remarkable stretch of scenery through the Genesee Gorge and eventually handed to the public as a place, one of our foremost state parks.

And there are others like him, you know, the John Boyd Thacher.

Thacher State Park, again, was private philanthropy.

A number of parks in the Finger Lakes region were the work of the Treeman family.

But the great moment in what we're celebrating this year is the centennial of the establishment of a unified state park and historic site system.

That really for the first time saw there was this map of sort of unrelated resources and tried to establish a framework to make them a single unified system.

The 1924 Sate Park Plan is really the seminal document.

New York State is forwarding a state park plan at a time that I think upwards of almost 30 states didn't even have a state park.

New York State was working on a unified state park plan, I think that's something we're very proud of.

- The parks and the statewide system actually protect and preserve some of the most iconic landscape in the state, if not the most iconic landscape in the state.

Preservation is really that it's protecting, you know, these landscapes.

And at the time, people didn't probably realize what's actually in these ecosystems and environments.

Yeah, you have Niagara Falls and these beautiful expanses, like Jones Beach and Oceanfront, but the actual environment that's there, that's providing these ecosystem services, truly it's profound what we were able to protect and what that provides to us as a society.

The fact that, you know, we have clean air, fresh water, you know, food, wildlife, that all comes from the fact that a hundred years ago, there was thought to try and keep these places from development and for public use.

Really wanted to also, you know, give space for the fact that these places, they're not special because they're just state parks.

You know, being a state park isn't what makes them special.

They were special before they were state parks.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 2] The foundation of New York's Park system was built on bold ideas and diverse contributions from the Civilian Conservation Corps, who shaped Newtown Battlefield State Park, to today's stewards, every hand has added a layer to this enduring legacy.

(gentle music) - The Civilian Conservation Corps was a New Deal Program.

Franklin Roosevelt is one of perhaps his most popular programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps, basically put hundreds of thousands of young men to work on what was called emergency conservation work.

So in New York State, working in forest preserves, tree farms, clearing invasive species, planting new trees, really our state park system had plans.

We already knew what we wanted to do at some of those places.

We did not have the resources, however, in the midst of the depression to do it, just a period when we were able to advance our parks agenda in spite of really all the economic turmoil that characterized the period.

- Initially, the thought was it was going to be integrated, but the southern states pushed back on that.

So, there are two CCCs.

The extra C ends up being for the colored.

The colored troops are separated out and it's set up like a military system.

Many of the people who are in charge are in fact military officers.

And they are going all over the United States and working on a lot of national parks, state parks, historic sites, and building infrastructure.

And that allows them to earn a living.

Many of the CCC camps, whether they are for the White or the Black enlisted, they're given education.

They're taught languages.

They're getting all of these things that they have not had an opportunity to achieve.

They have bands.

They have athletic groups.

They involve themselves with their community.

And around New York, we see the presence of the CCC and the extra C in our parks.

We have them at Letchworth.

We have them at Cherry Plains in other locations, and that is valued.

It gave people a way to get an education, earn a decent living, and regain pride in themselves at a time when our nation is struggling.

- One of the biggest issues though is really in the 1920s, it's the automobile is coming into much more sort of common usage.

Car ownership is on the rise.

So, it's really a system that is designed to be reached by a car, which is fine if you have a car, but that is one of the deficiencies ultimately of the system.

If you don't have a car, you're probably not gonna get to some of these places.

- So unless you're in New York City, or some parts of Long Island, or out in Niagara region, like around Niagara Falls, Buffalo, without a vehicle, it's gonna be really difficult for you to visit and experience our parks and our historic sites.

So, I'm really proud that New York State Parks has been partnering with a lot of municipal transportation companies 'cause I want everybody to love the parks like I did as a little girl growing up, especially those coming from the marginalized communities where we know transportation is a huge barrier.

- I think now it's really about a sort of reappraisal of where we're at.

We're revisiting parks and sites.

We're striving to make them more accessible, to make them inclusive, to make everyone comfortable there.

At our historic sites, we're working to revamp some of our interpretation.

So, it's a very organic thing.

It's constantly evolving and addressing new needs, new perspectives, new viewpoints.

It'll be interesting to see what it looks like in a hundred years.

(birds chirping) - We are at Ganondagan State Historic Site in upstate New York, and we are the site of a 17th Century Seneca Town, which existed here up until 1687.

(gentle music) So, Ganondagan is a state historic site, And you know, as such, we're part of that division, the agency, Office of Parks Recreation, & Historic Preservation.

And you know, when they were, when they formed together long ago, I think there was some challenges that had to be overcome and systems maybe that were not quite congruous to one another.

Working within a sort of governmental agency, which has built into it, you know, processes, and regulations, and parameters that you have to work within, can present challenges, especially when you are thinking forward and you have big projects in mind.

The system is not a fast one.

Things don't move quickly, but they are considerate, right?

And for a reason.

You know, it's amazing that the park system and the historic site system was able to create Ganondagan.

You know, that was a radical move, really back in the '80s, to engage native communities, bring them in as stakeholders at par with the agency leadership and create a historic site in collaboration, in real collaboration.

That was like incredible in the 1980s and revolutionary and radical.

(gentle music) When we looked at the history of Ganondagan and Seneca people who lived here, look at their archeological record, what was here, what could be found.

The most enlightening aspect of that study is to realize that back in the 17th century, that there was this global network in existence already of trade.

So at Ganondagan, you might find Delftware from Holland.

You might find blankets from England.

You might even find Chinese porcelain, you know, with the Asian trade that coming into Europe, and then moving over to, you know, the people on the edges of what the colonists considered the frontier, you know?

I think that probably is the most surprising to people is how cosmopolitan the Senecas of Ganondagan were.

So to me, in my mind, there's a lack of pridefulness in the indigenous histories of people in the United States.

And I don't, I'm not sure why that is, but I feel like every American, you know, indigenous or not, should understand like whose land you're standing on, right?

And perhaps, why aren't they in possession of it anymore, right?

And if they exist or the descendants, right, the communities exist, like isn't that incredible?

You know, looking at the history of this land and knowing the kinds of very destructive, very contentious, bloody, you know, events that took place to our ancestors, right?

The fact that we still exist and we're still around.

We have in many cases culturally intact with language, and ceremonies, and worldviews, you know, is something that should be really celebrated by every American, you know?

And that's kind of my approach to the public when they come to Ganondagan is to try to instill that sense of pridefulness in the people of this region.

- Now, we go to much greater lengths to try to work with involved communities.

I mean, it used to be the mode that, you know, one person or a small team of people would go.

They'd go to the library.

They'd go to the archives.

They would do a bunch of research and they would present a story.

And they would often, in fact, almost always do that without involving the communities, the descendants, the other people that were actually being talked about.

So now, when we were talking about a Native Americans and indigenous society and culture and history, we work with the appropriate communities to involve them, so that we're not telling their story.

We're working with them so they can tell their story.

(gentle music) - It informs our current life, right, to know where we came from, who we are, and also to explore diverse stories that aren't necessarily the ones that we learned in our own youth, - With the representation of staff, programming, and the availability, I think we're doing a really good job to address the wrongs that have been done in the past.

So, I'm really proud of what our historic preservation staff is doing with our whole history initiative, which is going into our historic sites and telling more inclusive stories about everyone that resided, may have worked there, and we're just a part of the everyday functioning of these sites.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Good stewardship means making good decisions about buildings, understanding the character defining features, what is truly historic or irreplaceable about them, making judicious changes.

Reversibility is very important in historic preservation.

If we make a change to a building, hopefully, a future generation can reverse that change.

- [Narrator 3] So, one of the important things with working with historic materials is matching the properties, both the physical properties and the sort of aesthetic character of them.

Here, sort of, I'm looking at samples of historic mortar.

And I'm looking at the sands and the binders and I'm gonna try to replicate that to use on a historic building.

It's important to match the physical and the aesthetic qualities.

So then, I have a whole library of sands and I will match the color, the texture of the sample.

So then, when the mason is repointing, you won't be able to tell that it's different than the historic.

(gentle music) - Technology has like most parts of life, it's really affected preservation.

I look at the way that we collect, and manage, and compile data.

- [Narrator 3] A lot of times when we're replicating things for historic buildings, we can't do it the way they did originally.

We can't hand carve molds.

We don't have the time.

We don't have the money to do it that way.

So, we fit, we scan the ceiling at Philipse Manor Hall for you to scanned it.

And then, we took those images and we 3D printed them in reverse to make molds.

And then, we actually made new paper mache, filled them, and put 'em on the ceiling at Schuyler Mansion.

And so, no one can tell they're not original.

- I've added an edge lining with this thin stable text material, and it'll be used to reversibly mount this to a canvas cupboard board, so it can be handled and displayed.

This is like a raking light beforehand.

You can see all the distortions that have been really reduced A lot of, yeah, distortion along that edge.

So, I did some little repairs.

(gentle music) It emits x-ray beams that interact with the different elements in different ways and produce a signature spectrum.

And the software that we have gives us a really easy way to basically, you know, see those different energies and identify exactly what elements are there.

(gentle music) - For every Johnson Hall, there's a thousand buildings that didn't survive, right?

These are sort of place makers.

It has a story to tell, right?

It brings that story to life.

We are sitting in really the great hall of Sir William Johnson's house.

He was the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in colonial New York.

He died just before really the events of the revolution.

He obviously had grandiose ambitions for a house of the scale in Georgian sophistication to be built on the frontier of New York State.

It was sort of an ambitious, and bold, and forward-looking statement.

This is not the house that everyone built in Colonial New York.

Keep in mind, there's probably thousands of people in New York State, at the state who are living in log houses.

So, this is really a stature house.

And what I find most interesting is, you know, Georgian buildings often have their main historic core and they have some outlying dependencies to form sort of a five part composition.

In this case, the outlying dependencies were basically stone block houses, which gives a sense that there was still danger on the frontier that one might need to retreat to a fortified position in spite of all the Georgian refinery around you.

- So, there were White indentured servants, but the majority of the staff at Johnson Hall were in fact enslaved Africans or people of African descent.

And we know he holds over time upwards of 40 people.

The term slave is really not used within the documents that people write about their enslaved people.

They call them servants.

At the time of his death, there are about 33 on their property.

The majority of them are men, which is very common in New York.

Most of the women would have been domestics within the house and the men then worked on the farm.

- We're reexamining, we're doing a deeper dive in research and finding out who actually was on, you know, lived on these properties and worked these properties.

And it's not easy.

The records, some records are there and some are not.

- We have stashes of archives all over the state.

They are in large holdings like the New York State Archives, New York Public Library, New York Historical Society, small historical societies all over the state.

They're in churches.

They're in people's basements and in attics.

They're in family bibles and collections.

Throughout the state, we have boxes of documents from this period just waiting to be read and transcribed.

And they are in English.

They're in Dutch.

They're in German.

They're in French.

We've always been a multilingual, multicultural environment from the very beginning.

So this is a time when we really, we've done a lot and we've made so much progress, but we have a long way to go.

- [Narrator 2] Every park and historical site is a narrative in itself.

A piece of the larger mosaic of New York's history.

Places like Sojourner Truth State Park and Roberto Clemente State Park not only celebrate our diverse heritage, but challenge us to reflect on our collective past and present.

(gentle music) - Going back a hundred years ago, I think a lot of the history telling was hero worship, was centered around telling the stories of, you know, the great general or the, you know, the very rich family that built a mansion and a financial empire.

And these were the things that most our historic sites focused on.

- So, we talk about the person that the mansion is owned by maybe the family that lives inside of the mansion, but we don't talk about the people who built the mansion.

We don't talk about the people who allowed that entire man or estate to be profitable, and who worked the land, and who operated everything within that structure, you know.

So, we leave a lot of the story behind.

So now, we're trying to make sure that that story is complete and inclusive.

And it's not just at historic sites, it's also with something like the National Register Program.

We're going back and saying, "Okay, why did we say this building was significant?

How do we reexamine that and look at all the areas and all the reasons that might have made it significant beyond just this one prime narrative that we've clung to for so long?"

So, it's a matter of really looking at what was omitted, and marginalized, and left behind and saying, "We're going to be accurate.

We're going to be truthful.

We're going to talk about enslaved people.

We're gonna talk about tenant farmers.

We're gonna talk about displaced indigenous nations that were pushed off of their land.

We're going to talk about all of those things, because all of those things are part of this story that we've left out before."

- You know, one of the aspects of Ganondagan that's probably the most impactful is that when people come here, they're gonna engage with indigenous people.

We hire indigenous interpretive guides.

They're gonna engage directly with native people who are speaking from their first person perspective, you know?

If they're a Seneca historic interpreter, they're gonna tell you, "My ancestors who lived at Ganondagan.

We did this long ago, We did that long ago.

We experienced these things long ago."

And so, that direct connection to the people has a great impact on the public.

And we hear about it all the time.

We've had people come here who've attended other major museums, and they're kind of confused because there's no indigenous presence.

I mean, there's exhibits and objects, perhaps presentations, whatever.

But if they're not meeting a native person, it's giving a strange message, you know?

But when you have a native person in front of you telling their story, the story of their ancestors, it like really touches the public deeply.

And I hope that they and I hope that all of the public gets that reaction when they come here.

- [Narrator 2] These spaces are more than just parcels of land.

They're where generations learn about themselves and their world.

- I grew up in Rockaway Beach and I wanted to be stronger for surfing.

It turned into a scholarship with Division 1.

The lifeguarding seemed to be a natural progression.

I jumped into that, loved it, started to teach.

I did teaching for 36 years.

I did (indistinct) for 48, you know.

It has to do with the scheduling like, and again, the guy who just walked past was a teacher.

When school ends the, we go full-time at the beach and when the beach ends, school's starting a new leaf, you know?

Eh, there's your beach, yeah.

My brother lifeguarded with me and my son's doing it also.

It's a wonderful place to be and again, when it gets hot, it offers relief.

This is an onshore wind.

It's a little rougher.

With an offshore wind, it looks a little bit more glassy and it's better for surfing and stuff like that.

So, and again, you'll see here the shore break.

It's relatively small now, well, like a foot big, but it can get eight feet tall, the shore break.

And again, when people don't know what they're supposed to do, that's why we have jobs, you know.

We get huge crowds here and on a private beach, you're liable to get a much more smaller crowd and people know how to swim.

So that like, you know, it may not be for everybody, but it was great for me so.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 2] The relationship between New Yorkers and their parks is intimate and enduring.

(mellow music) They are where we celebrate, learn, and seek solace.

I think many people have personal memories of going to the parks with their families, with friends, having childhood experiences at parks, camping for the first time, sitting around the campfire for the first time.

But beyond that, I think these places have become places of refuge.

You know, especially during COVID, when people couldn't go and enjoy indoor spaces, they came into the parks.

They came to seek the outdoors.

They came to try to find some sense of peace and comfort.

And these spaces are beautiful.

(mellow music) - People will tell you, you know, if this were private, I wouldn't be able to be here.

Only, as they say, the hoi polloi would be allowed to come, but here, everybody can come.

Nobody can tell me I can't come.

And I can bring my children and my grandchildren and my parents came here before me.

And to have these spaces public.

But the initial idea was more about conservation.

It was also about historic preservation, to preserve like the lighthouse that you see behind me, 1792 commissioned by George Washington, right?

It was to preserve the lighthouse and maybe the fragile ecology that's surrounded.

But more and more would begin to interview people and ask them why they were important for them and what they tell you, it's because they feel like they belong.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 2] Amidst the challenges of climate change and environmental shifts, New York's parks stand as crucial sanctuaries for biodiversity, playing a vital role in conservation and education efforts.

- The land under the lighthouse keeps eroding, and there is constant debate about building it up and moving the lighthouse.

And how will we move the lighthouse?

This is a 1792 lighthouse.

But there it isn't just the historic lighthouse that's being eroded away.

The Montauk and the very viability of the town of Montauk is in jeopardy.

And right now, they have made the decision to constantly dredge and bring in new sand.

Corps of Engineers, which is a federal fund, is going all the way from Fire Island, well, that's now a national park all the way down the coast of Montauk to restore the coast at the cost of millions and millions of dollars.

But with what's going on with climate change and these dramatic storms, now bringing sand could last three months, six months.

It used to last seven years if you did sand replenishment.

Now, they figure maybe a year, if we're lucky.

Where are we gonna get the money to do this?

And then, I say to myself, well, let the ecological processes just go.

But then, we're putting the entire livelihood of all of Montauk and the fishermen who live there, and all the people who have been there forever at total risk.

The town is a beach town.

If they don't have beaches, they lose their viability.

So when we think about the future and we think about parks and their role in erosion and climate change, it's really, it's social, and commercial, and political, as well as ecological.

These questions of how are we going to stabilize or are we going to stabilize these areas of erosion?

Are we going to replenish or are we going to let nature quote, "take its course"?

But of course, nature now, whatever those natural processes, have been speeded up by the impact of humans.

So, that climate change and issues of sustainability are so much more complex than they used to be.

I think that one future role, important future role for our state parks will be to take the lead.

- You know, Jones Beach is built in on pumped up sand.

That Moses pumps an incredible amount of sand onto that little spit of land to build all that infrastructure.

And about halfway through the project, all the sand started blowing away and they were losing their minds.

And then, they realized you have to put dune grass down.

So, they started planting the dune grass and then held it.

- The challenges that are faced by the environment aren't unique to New York.

It's definitely, you know, a global issue.

It's stresses to the environment.

They don't really respect borders or boundaries.

There's no geopolitical border or boundary for environmental impacts.

The environment is interconnected.

It's like an interwoven tapestry almost, where if you pull one thread or cut one, you know, section, you don't really know what the cascading effects will be.

So, those challenges can be really daunting and can feel really disheartening.

These stressors, you know, some of 'em are new development.

Back, you know, in 1924 when they're preserving parkland to try and keep it from being developed, you know, or you know, out of private hands, those stressors are around today, you know.

They still exist.

The impact of climate change is truly transformational.

And these shifting environmental conditions where, you know, with temperature change, you know, sea level rise, we're starting to see environments that were maybe more southern becoming more northern and species, you know, environments needing to move.

We can help with that.

You know, we're a real unique location in terms of the diversity of our landscapes, and we can help be part of a corridor system that allows for these species to actually shift in range.

And people say, "Oh, well, if we lose all our ash trees and you know, that will be a, you know, we can't come back from that."

It'll be a change.

As long as we're creating space for whatever new species can survive in that new environment and make it a diverse and resilient environment will all change.

There will be a change, but our environment will still be strong and resilient.

And that's, I think, where New York is really helping to work with other states.

We're working with other partners to really create those corridor, those landscape opportunities for the environment to help it shift as we're facing the changing climate.

- The agency is seeking to get out ahead of really the idea of climate change, storm frequency, storm intensity.

We've been studying some of our coastal facilities to see how to make them more resilient.

From the preservation perspective, it's slightly harder because our options aren't as good.

Say our Atlantic Coast Parks on Long Island, how do we save our historic infrastructure?

Our one story bathhouses that are on beaches, when you have rising tides and increasing hurricanes, it is really, it's a challenge.

It's a big challenge.

- [Narrator 2] The stewards of these parks are not just caretakers of land, but guardians of the future.

In essence, a steward is a caretaker.

Someone who takes responsibility for caring for a particular place.

So, anyone who puts their time, and energy, and resources towards caring for a place and taking action to carry that out and to demonstrate, to make manifest that caring can be a steward.

And we consider ourselves at New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, & Historic Preservation to be stewards.

(mellow music) - We are all stewards.

And when I say that, I don't mean just parks employees, you know?

I mean, it is everyone's responsibility to be stewards of this planet.

Whether in in New York or, you know, in another location, we all need to be stewards.

But the way that we are helping that through state parks in our sites is through environmental education.

We have over 80 million visitors, you know, in 2024 coming to our parks.

And again, these are potentially people who've never been to a park before or they come all the time.

But each visitor, whether they've come once or they come over and over again, each time they come to our park, it's an opportunity to educate them on stewardship.

And that could be how they could be good environmental stewards while they're in the park, but also how they can be good environmental stewards, you know, back at home or in their communities.

And collectively, all of that action, you know, makes a difference.

- [Narrator 2] Through sustainable practices and environmental education, they prepare us to be better custodians of our culture and our planet.

- Just these two for a second.

Raise your hand if you have an idea of an animal on this table.

I want you with no idea what these belong to, try to group 'em together.

Today, we're working with a local summer camp to introduce the students to the live animal ambassadors that live at Grafton Lake State Park, as well as see the skulls and pellets of animals that live within the park.

(gentle music) And pick up a random skull, start examining it, and start moving it around until you think you found someone that matches or that they might be related.

Working with the local school systems, a lot of the field trips that come out to Grafton, this is their first experience with a more wild environment.

They get to experience finding toads and newts and finding salamander eggs out in the woods.

And the excitement and just natural curiosity that comes out and how that natural curiosity progresses through what they're seeing and what they're finding outside.

- Do we know who this guy is?

Why do we think he's called a bearded dragon?

- When students visit Grafton Lakes, we do offer a variety of resources for the teachers and for the students to come back to other parks.

So, we are a small park in the larger system and we might not be the closest park to them.

We connect the teachers with resources, like Connect Kids reimbursement grant for busing to get students out when their funding might not be able to cover the transportation costs, or the entrance fees, or the program fees.

- Today, I learned that like snakes are not like hard.

They're like very soft and like, kind of like not slimy, but just like really soft.

- It's very adventurous outside and you get to learn like a lot of things that you never learned before.

- Working for New York State Parks and especially at Grafton Lakes, I get to share my passion for the wildlife, and share my passion for the ecosystem, and really get to invite the public to different aspects that the parks is working on.

We've been teaching people how to survey vernal pools, how to monitor for invasive species, and how to safely interact with wildlife around us.

And I really have a lot of passion in just interacting with the public in a wild space.

And let's hold it up, so we can hold it like this to match up the photo.

Here, do you guys wanna hold that one?

- [Narrator 2] As we look to the future, New York's parks poise to continue their mission with renewed vigor.

These spaces of our New York are not just being preserved, but they're being revitalized.

Ensuring that New York's natural heritage will inspire and nurture for another hundred years.

(gentle music) - The people that follow us will continue to do new things, improve on what we're doing.

You know, if I look back over the last a hundred years, there's continuous improvement.

I don't think for a moment that we are the, you know, the we are the apex and you know, we've figured it all out.

Far from it.

There'll be continuous improvement.

The goal is for us to try to reach as many people as possible.

Bring in as many people as possible into our parks, into our historic sites.

Make them have experiences that are really, really rewarding for them.

- New York State has a incredibly rich and vital indigenous history and reality, modern reality.

And I think that the park system needs to be, not just aware of it, but to see the indigenous cultures as an asset, right?

To draw people into places, to tell good stories about those places and about the people, you know.

that are not well represented in other ways.

(gentle music) - As a little girl growing up with my grandfather in state parks, I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me, which was something I always questioned.

I've always been a little inquisitive little lady, as my grandfather would say.

So, I want to make sure that our parks reflect our state and our nation.

(gentle music) - Above and beyond preserving the land, we are making a conscious effort to make it very open to everyone.

For a long time, parks were not a comfortable or safe space for people of color.

And that is changing.

We still have a long way to go, but that long way to go has more to do with our comfort as Americans with each other than with the locations themselves.

And I really do wanna encourage people of color to go into the park system.

We can put up signs, we can invite people forever, but until people are willing to go out and be part of community, the community that is New York, things won't change.

And we can continue to complain and complain about things not changing, but we have to actively participate in that.

And it's not always about protesting.

It is about going out to a park, taking your dog for a walk, taking yourself for a walk and saying hello to people.

- But contact, just you and I meeting, in and of itself is probably not enough to create the social goods of health, social justice, socialization, all the incredibly rich benefits.

Team playing, reducing our, becoming more tolerant, becoming more conclusive, recognizing each other in a deep way.

But contact and being together produces something I call public culture.

So, when I go to a park with a lot of other people or we come here together, we learn about each other.

And in that learning about each other, we learn sort of a set up, a set of rules that allow us to function and be together in a meaningful way.

- Just getting to know people and to become comfortable in that space and to trust that you can be comfortable in that space.

And then, when you are not, New York State Parks has your back and that's really important.

- [Narrator 2] As we stand at the precipice of the next century, New York state parks and historic sites remain vibrant testaments to our shared heritage and living sanctuaries.

They are not just landscapes or buildings, but spaces to actively preserve and cherish.

Join us in protecting these precious resources, ensuring they continue to inspire, teach, and heal for generations to come.

- I think the most important question going forward is how do we own something collectively?

How do we make something public?

How do we collectively manage our resources collectively?

Here we are in a state park that represents the collectivity.

How do we hold onto it?

How do we celebrate it?

How do we save it for our future generations in all the ways, all the forms of sustainability that I'm talking about?

- It is heavy.

Being in the environmental field, you know, you can get a lot of, you know, just negative news potentially.

You know, you're dealing with those negatives, trying to find solutions.

But we can collectively make sure that those environs are resilient and not just only resilient for themselves, but also accessible for people to be in and understand and enjoy.

And I think that there's just a lot of hope in that space right now.

And hope breeds optimism, and then optimism I think creates positive action.

So, you know, I think hopeful is the word.

(gentle music) - When you look at the past 100 years, our forefathers and mothers, they conserved and preserved these spaces for a special reason, to protect it from the hands of development.

We now know more than ever the additional value that these open spaces and our parks play on our everyday lives.

Our parks are critical to our physical and mental wellness.

They aid in a healthy mind, body, and soul.

We need these open spaces to keep them in their natural state for the health of the environment, but for our own community health as well.

When we took this torch from our predecessors and we're making the system grander, more diverse, more accepting, it truly is a system for all.

And we need to now take that and hand it off to our successors.

And we need to encourage them to do better than we did in protecting and conserving these properties.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 1] From the sky, reaching towers of New York will come the worn and pressured folk.

Eyes hungry for restful greenery.

Ears yearning for birdsong.

Muscles ready for the challenges of mountain and glen.

There must be more woods for them, more lakes for them, more hills for them.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 2] Let us together continue to foster deeper connection with nature and each other here at our.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues)