§3191 Management plans

Summary

Within five years from December 2, 1980, the Secretary must make and send to Congress a conservation and management plan for every National Park unit created or enlarged by this Act. Each plan must show maps of important places (wilderness, natural, historical, wildlife, cultural, archaeological, paleontological, geological, recreational, and similar resources) and the unit’s administrative divisions. The plan must explain how the unit will manage plants, animals, habitats, cultural and geological sites, recreation areas, and wilderness through research, protection, restoration, development, and visitor interpretation. It must describe any possible development, the kinds of visitor services and their estimated costs, and whether those services could be provided outside the unit. The plan must include access and circulation plans, a land-acquisition and boundary-change plan, programs to recognize and protect the culture and history of people living in the unit on December 2, 1980 and to encourage their employment, descriptions of any private lands inside the unit and how their uses will be handled, and how the unit’s management will relate to nearby areas and possible cooperative agreements. When creating or updating a plan, the Secretary must consider the unit’s original purposes, protect its ecological and cultural values and scenic character, allow Alaska Natives living in or near the unit to keep doing traditional activities there, and take into account activities next to the unit. The Secretary must hold at least one public hearing near the unit and one in an Alaska metropolitan area and, as practical, allow the Alaska Land Use Council, affected federal, state, and local officials, Native Corporation officials, and interested organizations and individuals to participate.