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Wrangell-St. Elias Listening Sessions

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve » Wrangell-St. Elias Listening Sessions » Document List

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve will be conducting a series of community listening sessions to gather information from the public regarding land management plans. This effort builds on the park's previous planning efforts for backcountry and wilderness stewardship, but expands the conversation to include frontcountry areas as well. The goal is to broaden understanding of the values, issues, and concerns related to the park and how it is managed. These listening sessions will gather further information from the public to inform appropriate future planning, if any, for frontcountry, backcountry, and wilderness. The listening sessions will also provide an avenue for the public to submit general comments to park management.

Public engagement will include all 23 resident zone communities, 13 of which have federally recognized tribal governments. Park stakeholders beyond the rural communities will be engaged as well. Public meetings began in 2018, continued in 2019, but are currently on hold due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Meetings will resume when feasible to hold in-person meetings and will continue until all surrounding communities have had a chance to meet with the Superintendent and the planning team.

A summary report describing the themes of comments received during 2018 is published on the park planning website (see link below). Additional communities where listening sessions will be held include Anchorage, Cantwell, Chistochina, Cordova, Fairbanks, Gakona, Glennallen, Mentasta, Northway, Tazlina, Tok, Valdez, and Yakutat. A separate news release will announce the dates and times for those listening sessions. This project description will be updated with meeting details once they are scheduled. In addition to attending a public meeting, the comment card (on the park planning website under the header "Document List") can be used to submit comments.

Contact Information

Morgan Gantz, 907-822-7213