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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

A Call for More Diversity in the Nation's Parks

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Monday, May 9, 2016   

INDIANAPOLIS – As the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service nears, a coalition of civil rights and conservation groups is calling for public lands to be more inclusive over the next century.

The coalition has started a petition urging President Barack Obama to issue an executive order to make public lands more diverse.

Maite Arce, president of the Hispanic Access Foundation, says the coalition has the legacy of public lands in mind with this petition.

"Our work here as a coalition is to challenge this president, and also our next president, to really embrace a vision for the next century of conservation that focuses on the importance of national parks and public lands for all Americans, with emphasis on all," she states.

Indiana has three National Park Service units – the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana Dunes on the south shore of Lake Michigan and the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Vincennes – as well as more than two dozen state parks.

Arce says hiring a diverse workforce in the parks, in order to hear from diverse voices, is key to making public lands more inclusive.

"There's always been for many years a discussion about the difficulty in reaching diverse communities, but without those individuals working on these lands and for our parks, it's really going to be difficult to develop programming that reaches and engages different populations," she stresses.

Shantha Ready Alonso is the executive director of Creation Justice Ministries, an environmental justice group that represents major Christian denominations. She maintains there should be more protections for the sacred parts of public lands.

"Right now, too many places where there are petroglyphs, or we know that there are graves, are being ravaged and disturbed because they're under-protected and under-recognized,” she points out. “We would like to see more reverence for those types of places."

The petition is online along with policy recommendations at change.org.






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