MAKE THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR ACCOUNTABLE FOR PERSONS MISSING IN OUR NATIONAL PARKS & FORESTS

Currently, there is no centralized registry or database of persons who have gone missing in our national parks and forests or on Bureau of Land Management lands. If search and rescue parties are unable to locate the missing, no records are required to be kept by our government about the missing person case or the circumstances surrounding the event. When remains of the missing are found, again, no records are required to be maintained.  Often, attempts to acquire information regarding the missing are blocked by bureaucratic red tape and/or demands for exorbitant fees.

It is time to demand that a national, publicly accessible registry/database be created in which all missing persons are accounted for in our national parks and forests and on BLM lands. The purpose of this would be to make the government accountable for keeping track and reporting of the missing, to inform the public of the facts surrounding missing persons cases on public lands, as well as keeping account of all missing individuals and the circumstances under which they went missing on public lands.  

It is hoped that such a centralized searchable database will result in:

• governmental accountability and transparency with regard to the missing;
• continued search efforts for the missing;
• public empowerment to make informed decisions regarding personal safety in areas where people have gone missing;
• law enforcement identification and investigations into hot spots where many have gone missing;
• loved ones of the missing being kept informed of efforts to recover the missing.
• law enforcement having another tool for gaining familiarization with missing persons cases

Let's demand a publicly transparent database and provide hope for the families whose loved ones are still missing and unaccounted for on federal lands.