Background Paper No. 2


tent there is a sharing of these resources between the

Park Service and the Ecological Research Station, author-

ized through a Memorandum of Agreement between the Park

Service and the College of the Virgin Islands. It is very

doubtful that such a relationship would exist if the Sta-

tion were located otherwise. This is so because most of the

research objectives of the National Park Service lie in the

field of resource management, not in strict research which

in fact is the reason for the existence of the Ecological

Research Station.


 It is clear that whatever formal research relationship

that may exist between the Station and the National Park

Service will, under present policies, be limited to the exe-

cution of contract research by the Station for the Park Ser-

vice. The limit to which this contract relationship exists

should be defined. To a very great extent, however, those

possibilities are severely limited by the National Park Ser-

vice since they do not accept unsolicited proposals for re-

search. This is an undesireable situation, considering the

unique role played by the National Park within the community.

That the National Park Service has made concessions in other

aspects of the natural resources of the Virgin Islands Nat-

ional Park should give license for modification of policies

which in effect are designed to cover continental Park man-

agement, and are not necessarily realistic in this insular

community.


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