The National Park Service oversees more than 85 million acres of land across the U.S., including 16 national parks and dozens of historic landmarks around Massachusetts. And for the first time in the Park Service's 107-year history, its director is a Native American tribal citizen. Chuck Sams was sworn in to the position late in 2021, filling a yearslong gap at the agency. This week, he's visiting parks service sites in Boston for National Park Week. Sams joined GBH's Morning Edition hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel to discuss his visit. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Paris Alston: Thank you so much for being with us, Director Sams. So Boston is not exactly like a Yellowstone or a Yosemite. We're not home to something like that. But we do have three national parks here. So why come here for National Park Week?

Chuck Sams: You know, as we prepare for America 250, our 250th birthday as a nation, I couldn't think of a better place to spend National Park Week rather than right here in Boston, where the spark of the revolution began.

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Jeremy Siegel: And as part of your trip here in Boston, you've been visiting sites around the area, including yesterday, a naturalization ceremony which was held at Faneuil Hall, which is a huge tourist attraction in Boston. There's also a longtime effort in the works that we wanted to ask you about by activists and ministers to rename Faneuil Hall because of its namesake, Peter Faneuil's, role in the slave trade. Faneuil Hall is owned by the city of Boston, but is operated as a visitor center and historic site by the National Park Service. I'm curious whether you think something like this should be renamed.

Sams: I think that we should have those conversations because the setting of Faneuil Hall was where debate in America came from. And that's an important part of the American aspect under our First Amendment, to be able to have free speech and debate. And so I think that's a good conversation to have with the National Park Service, that we're dedicated to telling those tough stories, including how Faneuil Hall was built and who he was as a slaveholder. And it's important that people understand how that process worked and how we struggled as a nation to get beyond slavery and the inclusion of African Americans as true citizens of this United States, as they always should have been.

Siegel: And so, director, I just wanted to follow up on that. Are you saying you would support a renaming of it, or just purely that you support the idea of a conversation about renaming?

Sams: I support the idea of a conversation and we'll see where we go from there.

Alston: So, director, we mentioned that you are the first Native American and tribal citizen in this role. Also, Deb Haaland, who's the secretary of the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, is the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history. Of course, there is a long, long, storied history of our country's relationship to its indigenous peoples. And part of that relationship and the tension around it is the way that we have treated the land in this country. With you being in this role, would you say there's sort of a restorative stewardship that's happening for you?

Sams: Oh, I believe so. Tribes across the United States have really looked at land management through stewardship eyes. And while there are a number of tribes that were agricultural tribes, every tribe — and every tribe wasn't necessarily an agricultural tribe — all tribes were horticulturalists, which means they managed the landscape. We at the National Park Service are charged under the Organic Act of 1916 with being the stewards of the flora and fauna, and of, of course, there are memorials and monuments also. But tribes working with them and cooperating with them and co-stewardship and co-management is a great opportunity for the National Park Service to learn from their millennia, years, of understanding of the landscape.

Right here in Boston, a great example is, we're working on Deer Island and figuring out things around climate change and adaptation and resiliency, and working with the Narragansett, Wampanoag and several other tribes to figure out how we can tackle this important issue.

Alston: As we think about the tensions with that land and things that have happened over the past several decades, director, climate change is at the front and center. And we know that our national parks are already falling vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels around our own Boston Harbor Islands and Cape Cod National Seashore. So how is the National Park Service mitigating that and preparing for that in the years to come?

Sams: You know, we're in our third edition of the Green Parks plan, and we've identified five goals by climate friendly and climate ready in order to combat the climate crisis: Be energy smart and water wise as we achieve net zero water use and net zero energy for our facilities and operations. We want to buy green and reduce, reuse and recycle in order to achieve net waste and sustainability. And we green our rides: we're adopting and supporting zero-emissions transportation methods and foster a sustainability ethic by engaging our partners, our workforce and our visitors about how we can work around climate resiliency and environmental justice. Yesterday, while touring Harbor Islands, I saw the dynamic cooperative agreements that we have in collaboration of numerous partners. We're actually tackling this issue within the harbor itself. When I first came here in 1989, the harbor was in tough shape. It is great to see how that collaborative effort has worked to really clean up Boston Harbor.

Siegel: Director, since the National Park Service has a long and storied history and has had a lot of love from Americans over the years — I know now you're working to inspire that love in younger Americans. And I imagine one of the ways that the National Park Service is working to do that is online on social media. And one of the things that our team sends around every once in a while in the mornings are the tweets that come from the National Park Service. Who is behind this account? What is behind this account? Is it an effort to get younger people excited about the parks?

Sams: It absolutely is. We have a wonderful communications team. And the young person who actually runs our social media site is very savvy and very smart. We are trying to reach out to that next generation of stewards, the next generation who's going to fall in love with their national park so that they can continue to support them, not just for now, but for seven generations ahead.