The 2012 budget for GSMA includes more than $1.9 million in aid to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for everything from history demonstrations to scientific research on mountain streams. 

One new GSMA-funded program this year will put two rangers and multiple special interns in the park’s backcountry.  The new personnel will enforce regulations, assist persons in distress, and educate hikers and horseback riders about low impact backcountry use.

GSMA will also continue to fund staff for the park’s backcountry information and registration offices.

Total Association backcountry support will be $78,399 this year. 

Historic preservation projects funded by GSMA include storage of the park’s artifact collection, staff for managing the museum collection, restoration of the Hannah cabin and J.C. Cable corn crib, design of exhibits for the Elkmont historic area, and historic landscape maintenance in Cades Cove and Cataloochee ($136,023).

GSMA will also fund a small army of interns and volunteers, including two law enforcement interns, 20 education interns, and hundreds of volunteers ($88,131).

Support for water quality monitoring, protecting hemlock trees, and upgrading the Sugarlands museum will total $150,000. 

The remainder of GSMA’s aid will cover park visitor center staff, historic demonstrations such as grist milling and sorghum making, free publications including the park newspaper and fishing regulations, the park library, parks as classrooms programs, Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, visitor center utilities, and other needs. 

Last year GSMA contributed a record $4.7 million in park aid, a figure that included construction of the new Oconaluftee Visitor Center and renovation of Clingmans Dome Information Center.