Principles of New Park-area Planning as Applied to the Wrangell-St Elias Region of Alaska

Abstract

In an era of increasing land-use demands, it is getting ever-more-difficult to set aside lands for parks or equivalent units where protection rather than (multiple) use of the resource is the goal. Developing a sufficient justification for establishing an area of parkland is directly related to the proper use of well-recognized ecological principles—particularly to the fact that the area included should encompass a unique or nationally significant resource (Polunin & Eidsvik, 1979).This paper discusses four basic criteria that were used to evaluate potential boundary and resource-management alternatives for a seven-million-ha region in south-central Alaska, much of which was eventually included in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve. The necessity or basing the planning decisions on sound data cannot be overemphasized. The paper discusses the different data-types used in the planning process. It was the feeling of all involved in the planning process that more was known about the natural and social resources of the new Alaskan parks than had been known about any other new areas that had been added to the system. The need for good data is particularly acute when the establishment of the parks involves considerable controversy and opposition, as was the case here.