From 6:30pm until 8pm
Sense of Place Community Forum:
Outdoor Recreation Management in the White Mountains: Challenges & Solutions
Land managers are charged with caring for the entire ecosystem of conserved lands, which includes mitigating human impacts, while people seek quiet and refuge in outdoor places, and sometimes encounter a lot of other people seeking the same! How to balance all these needs and desires?
In 2020 public lands and private preserves across the country saw unprecedented numbers of visitors eager to explore the opportunities for recreation available to them in outdoor environments. Instinctively these outdoor spaces promised space to gather and effectively social distance while providing alternative forms of entertainment in a year when many indoor venues were closed completely or were strictly limiting access. As a result, many locations that had been seeing increasing visitation for the past decade were completely overrun, and areas that had previously been considered quiet or under the radar saw increased visitation levels. Join representatives from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Mahoosuc Land Trust, The Nature Conservancy, NH State Parks, and White Mountain National Forest Saco Ranger District to learn about the challenges faced in 2020 and anticipated for 2021, how land managers responded to these challenges, and how they are preparing for the coming year.
This event is free. Please click here to register.