World Ranger Day: Five Rangers from Austria to Mongolia

Markus Blank was an IT worker who had quit his job and didn't know what came next — until a trip to some U.S. national parks, when he knew instantly: he wanted to be a park ranger. He is one of thousands in a global community of rangers protecting the world's natural, cultural, historical and recreational places, and every July 31, World Ranger Day remembers rangers killed or injured in the line of duty and honors the work they do for everyone.

A global idea

National parks became a worldwide phenomenon after Yellowstone was established, and the national park "idea" is one of the United States' most important contributions to the global community. The National Park Service has helped park agencies around the world set up parks and protect natural and cultural heritage, and played a key role in developing the 1972 World Heritage Convention, which the U.S. National Park System helped inspire. It has gained at least as much as it has shared, learning from other countries' experience of managing parks. Here are five rangers it has worked with.

Markus Blank — Gesäuse National Park, Austria

Chief of maintenance. Gesäuse, in Styria, covers 12,000 hectares (nearly 30,000 acres) of the European Alps and is home to numerous plant and animal species. Markus studied electrical engineering and worked for years in information technology. After his U.S. trip he contacted the international volunteer coordinator at the National Park Service Office of International Affairs and found a volunteer position at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Back home, he applied to Gesäuse, spent a few years as a ranger interpreting the park's natural and cultural resources for visitors, and then became chief of maintenance — responsible for all of the park's buildings, trails, boards, signs, waysides, parking lots, climate stations and other infrastructure, and for the maintenance staff.

Paola Luyo — San Fernando National Reserve, Peru

Specialist and forest ranger. Paola became a forest ranger at San Fernando at 24 and is the first, and so far the only, woman to work as a ranger there since the reserve was established. In 2015 she became a specialist, moving into protected-area management and monitoring coastal marine species. The coastal desert reserve covers 154,716.37 hectares and exists to conserve the biological diversity of marine-coastal ecosystems belonging to the ecoregions of the cold Peruvian Current sea and the warm temperate Pacific desert, and to promote sustainable use of the area's natural resources. She chose the work to help conserve a vast coastal marine ecosystem — San Fernando is one of the best and largest examples of it in Peru — and is proud of how many people she has met who now understand why protected areas matter.

Tumursukh Jal — Ulaan Taiga Strictly Protected Areas, Mongolia

Superintendent. In 1987 Tumursukh turned down a prestigious job in the city to become a ranger at Lake Hovsgol National Park. He wanted to protect the "Blue Pearl," Lake Khuvsgul — Mongolia's largest freshwater lake by volume and second largest by area — and to raise his children there; some of them became rangers too. In 2012 he became superintendent of the newly established Ulaan Taiga Strictly Protected Areas, which cover 434,900 hectares (over 1 million acres). In 2016, with help from the Mongol Ecology Center, he visited the United States and toured a park sign shop. Back home he built a small shop beside the park's administration and began making affordable, environmentally friendly signs for parks across Mongolia. For years he has shared his expertise with other parks and his story with young people, to inspire them to care for the environment.

Dionel Ortega — Soberanía National Park, Panama

Park ranger. Soberanía, near the banks of the Panama Canal, spans 55,000 acres and is the most accessible national park from Panama City. Dionel makes sure no illegal activity happens in its protected areas, patrolling on land and on the water, on morning or night shifts. He helps monitor wildlife, rescues and releases animals, welcomes visitors and points them to trails, and in the summer helps fight the wildfires that sometimes break out. Caring for nature makes him happiest: for him there is nothing more pleasant than breathing fresh air and drinking from a natural stream.

Linda Björk Hallgrímsdóttir — Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland

Assistant park manager. Vatnajökull National Park takes in the Vatnajökull glacier and large areas around it, and was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2019. At her station in Skaftafell, Linda coordinates schedules and tasks for rangers and other staff, handles permits for events, filming and research, and manages a big campground. She had always loved the outdoors but didn't know park rangers existed until college, when she saw an advertisement for a ranger course. She started her first ranger job — her dream job — in 2002. What she loves most is how dynamic the work is: every day is different, and you never know what turn it will take.

Sources

Based on "Celebrating Park Rangers Around the Globe on World Ranger Day," National Park Service Office of International Affairs; a work of the United States government in the public domain.