El Yunque National Forest

Employment

My Typical Day in the El Yunque National Forest

By Cynthia Manfred, Nature Guide-Interpreter

I am a Nature Guide at El Yunque, the El Yunque National Forest. At El Yunque, as in most other national forests and parks, Nature Guides are known as "Interpreters.”

As an Interpreter I must follow certain guidelines when I am presenting information to the public. These “common sense” guidelines help me to make my presentations clear, memorable, entertaining, and above all accurate. Interpreters use techniques similar to those that a teacher, a speaker or an actor might use to help the public better understand a subject, speech or a performance. In each of my presentations I try to plant seeds of love and respect for nature in the mind of the visitor. My hope is that each seed will take root, and will continue to nurture and grow when the visitor leaves the El Yunque National Forest to return home.

My day in the forest begins at 8:30 am and ends at 5:00 pm; I am on duty Wednesday through Sunday, every week, all year long. When I arrive in the morning, I check my computer e-mail and phone voice-mail to see if I have received any assignments from my supervisor or messages from my co-workers. When I am not in the field (which is not too often), I have a small cubicle in the lower level of the El Portal Rain Forest Center where I can check messages, write reports and plan-out new interpretive themes, When I am finished with office work, around 9:00am, I check-out a Jeep from our small fleet of Forest Service vehicles, and begin my five mile drive up through the rain forest to my post at the Palo Colorado visitor center. This is where many of our most popular nature trails begin. During the day, I will answer visitor’s questions and help orient them to the various nature trails. When a group of visitors asks me for a guided nature trail tour, I will guide them for an hour through one of two short trails. During the tour, I will give them an “up close and personal” look at the many plants and animals that we discover while detailing the relationship of each to the ecology, geology and history of the forest. Visitors are asked to contribute a small fee to the El Yunque National Forest for this service.

I guide groups of visitors in the rain forest day-in and day-out; and yet, I find that each new day’s experience is still as exciting and fascinating to me now as it was on the first day I reported to work here ten years ago!. I love “spying” on nature and sharing its secret magic with others.
Sometimes I must guide three tours in a day, performing my orientation duties at the center in-between tours. It rains almost daily, but even with my rain gear on, I am often soaked to the skin. Even so, I am still happy and invigorated at day’s end as I reluctantly leave “my rain forest” to go home to rest-up and prepare for another unpredictable day.

The El Yunque National Forest is one of the most beautiful places I have ever known. At fifty years of age, I hope to be able to continue to share its beauty and secrets with our visitors (especially children) by guiding nature trail tours, far into the foreseeable future!

USDA Forest Service - El Yunque National Forest
Last Modified: Wednesday, 23 July 2008 at 13:53:17 EDT