Alaska State Parks seeking input

[93hummer]

FYI. Maybe we can ask for more 4x4 trails.

http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/feb/0...door-plan/[/url]


State parks seek input on outdoor plan

By [url=http://www.newsminer.com/staff/tim-mowry/]Tim Mowry
Published Monday, February 9, 2009

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FAIRBANKS - If you have an idea on how to improve outdoor recreation opportunities in Alaska’s state parks, the Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation wants to hear it.
The northern region of Alaska State Parks is hosting a community meeting on Wednesday to begin the process of updating the Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation’s Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan.
The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Department of Natural Resources office at 3700 Airport Way, near the corner of Airport Way and University Avenue.
Whether you want the state to build more trails, take care of existing trails, build new public-use cabins or fix up old ones, northern region parks superintendent Brooks Ludwig encourages people to show up and voice their opinions on the parks and what they think the future of parks should be.
The comprehensive plan is updated every five years in order to keep Alaska eligible for federal grant funds for recreation projects, Ludwig said.
In addition to a potential source of funding, the plan provides state parks with information about user trends.
“It tells us whether people want more trails or more public-use cabins, whether we should be improving more RV sites in more campgrounds, what percentage of people are riding ATVs and what percentage of people are riding snowmachines,” Ludwig said. “It gives us a gauge on what people are doing on public lands and what they would like to see us doing.”
People can go to the meeting to testify before the parks advisory committee or they can go online to alaskastateparks.org to complete a short user survey, Ludwig said. The online survey takes only about 10 minutes to complete and respondents do not have to provide their name.
“It’s pretty easy to do, so that’s pretty neat,” Ludwig said.
The survey questions users about what kind of equipment they own, which activities are important to them, how often they recreate, parks expansion, fee structure, how much enforcement they want to see and various other topics.
“It’s an opinion survey that helps state parks figure out what Alaskans do for recreation,” Ludwig said.
There also is a youth user survey for children 16 and under to fill out, Ludwig said.
State parks uses the information gathered at meetings and from the online survey to help write management plans for parks and recreation areas, Ludwig said.
“It gives us some good hard data that we can plan with and will help guide our funding decisions,” Ludwig said. “Any time I write a grant application I can quote from it. I can say, ‘Look here, 74 percent of Alaskans support trails.’”
User trends change as different interests develop and the statewide comprehensive plan helps track those changes, Ludwig said.
Contact outdoors editor Tim Mowry at 459-7587.