Celebrating Site Stewards at the 2025 Arizona Site Steward Program Conference

The Arizona Site Steward Program (SSP) is an organization of volunteers who monitor and protect cultural resources and heritage sites across Arizona. The 1980s saw an alarming increase in vandalism and theft at archaeological sites. In 1986, Governor Bruce Babbitt organized an advisory group to discuss the destruction of sites across the state, leading to the establishment of the Arizona SSP. The SSP is managed by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) under Arizona State Parks and Trails (ASPT) and is the largest Site Steward Program in the country. 

The state is broken up into twenty regions with over 2,400 sites monitored by stewards throughout the state. The program currently has approximately 525 site stewards. Site stewards visit sites based on what the land manager for each region has specified a need for and what is most at risk. These land manager partners include the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, counties, and non-profit organizations among others. The SSP is supported through grants from ASPT, the SSP Foundation, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Reclamation. 

Site stewards report to the regional coordinators who manage the site steward volunteers within their region. They handle the day-to-day operations, assign site stewards sites to monitor, and communicate with the land managers. There are also assistant regional coordinators in each region.