National Park Trust

Everyone will have an American park experience

NPT has launched an initiative called 'Where's Buddy Bison Been?™' which encourages children and their families to get outside and share their American Park Experience. Click here to learn more.

NPT’s mission is to provide important recreational and educational parkland opportunities for current and future generations. As we spend more time indoors and as successive generations grow up with less of a connection to nature we need to build greater awareness and appreciation for the importance of our country’s public lands and parks.

Our vision is that ‘everyone will have an American park experience'. To achieve this we seek to champion the acquisition and preservation of critical national, state and local parklands and to build a greater awareness through education - focusing on our youth, especially those that are underserved.

RECENT NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Student from Where's Buddy Bison Been?™ School Pilot Program Interviews DOI Secretary Ken Salazar

Budding journalist, Alexander Taylor, had the unique opportunity to interview Secretary...

After 140 Years, Bison Return to Kansas' Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

A long-gone species returned home Friday, not with a thunder of hooves, but with muffled...

Buddy Bison Joins Secretary Salazar, NPS Director Jarvis and Friends on a Hike in Yosemite National Park

Department of Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, newly appointed National Park Service...

MAPPING OUR PROGRESS

Click on the map to chart our progress. Green pins show the location of each land project. Clicking on the pin will bring up more information about the project.

What Makes Us Unique?
The National Park Trust is the nation’s only organization dedicated to the completion of the American system of National and State Parks through the identification of key land acquisition needs and opportunities, the convening of potential funders to acquire these lands. Through our Youth to Parks programs, NPT is also ensuring that future generations appreciate and experience this important national heritage.

Watch a short video on the National Park Trust »

Where's Buddy Bison Been?™

Hangin’ with VIPs!

Buddy Bison knows some Very Important People! He doesn't mean to drop names, but here he is with Secretary Ken Salazar and NPS Director Jon Jarvis and friends at Yosemite National Park; with California Senator Barbara Boxer and her grandson; with Will Shafroth, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, in Yellowstone National Park; and with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who took this Buddy Bison photo with his phone and promptly sent it out to his 1.3 million followers on Twitter...not bad for a little bison!

"The Buddy Bison program is a great program. I have my own Buddy and I took Buddy with me to Yellowstone...Buddy went with me to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. I take Buddy wherever I go...it’s a great symbol of our National Parks," said Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar.

Our vision is that Buddy Bison will become the icon and ambassador for visiting, exploring and protecting our nation's parks. Help us make that a reality by becoming a member of NPT, getting your own Buddy Bison, and joining the Where's Buddy Bison Been? movement by sharing your American Park Experience! Click here to get your own Buddy Bison.