Resources
The Denali Region
Schedule of Discussion Prompts
Week 1- Benefits and Threats to Denali Landscape (Jan 8th – Jan 14th)
For this week’s discussion, we would like to understand the range of benefits provided by the Denali landscape that make it such as a special place to live, as well as concerns of how these benefits may be threatened by landscape change.
- Benefits can be provided directly to you, but also to your family, your community, or the entire Denali region.
- Threats and stressors include changes to the environment or society that will negatively impact the landscape’s ability to provide benefits to yourself or your community.
Prompt: What are the benefits of living in Interior Alaska and northern Mat-Su? As the Denali region changes over the next 30 years, what are the major social or environmental threats that you think will negatively impact the landscape’s ability to provide these benefits to local communities?
Week 2- Management Practices to Address Threats (Jan 15th – Jan 21st)
For this week’s discussion, we would like to understand how public land management can be used to support important benefits provided by the landscape while reducing potential threats to your way of life in Denali. Management practices can encompass individual, community, regional, and statewide levels.
Prompt: What are the public land management practices you think will best support the benefits you associate with the landscape? How should management practices change to reduce the threats facing the Denali landscape?
Week 3 Topic- The Role of Values in Management (Jan 22nd – Jan 28th)
There are many ways to think about values. Over the past two weeks, we have learned about the variety of values that guide your lives and connections to the Denali landscape, as well as the values you see influencing public land management decisions. Some of you have recognized that you have a collection of values, many of which have inconsistencies. For example, you have talked about the importance of living a minimum impact life while also needing to use natural resources and seek some comforts. We all carry a bundle of values that is complex yet fundamentally important for influencing our behavior.
Prompt: What are the values that guide your life and how do these values influence your views of public land management in the Denali region? Do other people in your community share your values? To what extent do land management agencies reflect your values in their decision-making?
Week 4 Topic- Learning to Improve Management (Jan 29th – Feb 4th)
The last three weeks you have been sharing your perspectives with one another through a series of connected discussion prompts about the Denali region and protected area management. Your deliberation about land management, benefits and threats, and human values has encouraged a variety of viewpoints to come forward. We’ve been impressed with the earnestness of your contributions to the discussion. For the last prompt, we will ask you to discuss your perspectives on learning through the online forum as a group. We’d like to get your insight regarding what, if anything, did you learn, grow and/or gain a better understanding of as part of the Denali Discussion forum.
Prompt: What – if anything – have you gained a better understanding of through the Denali Discussion Forum? How did other people play a role in your learning process and what do you hope they learned in turn? How did your expectations for public land management change after engaging in the discussions?