Introducing Evan Salcido to the team!

Evan Salcido comes to us fresh out of a Master of Science program in Natural Resource Science & Management at the University of Minnesota. He has joined the academic community at the University of Illinois as a Ph.D. student in Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences. Evan is keen to transition into mixed-methods research from a read more »

Summer 2019 Denali Visit

Our team has returned to Denali for summer field work! Over the course of a few weeks, we held three focus groups, seven interviews, and several meetings with folks from the local communities, State DNR, and the Board of Fish and Game. Our team had many exciting experiences during these few weeks including celebrating Healy’s read more »

ENVISION meeting in Netherlands

This June, Professor Carena van Riper and Dana Johnson traveled to the VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands for the second meeting with the international ENVISION team. During a three day workshop, the broader collaboration provided updates on current findings from each study site, developed strategies for collaborating across sites, and deepened the meaning of ‘inclusive conservation’ read more »

Keeping in Touch Newsletter – June 2019

Our team has put together the first edition of our Keeping in Touch Newsletter where we plan to share our highlights and plans about how we are working towards our goal of establishing a process for inclusive conservation across all communities in the Denali region. You can check it out here!

Presenting Denali findings at the International Symposium on Society and Resource Management

The University of Illinois had a strong presence at the annual International Symposium on Society and Resource Management. Team member Dana Johnson shared preliminary findings on her research about characterizing the Denali region as a social-ecological system. She presented the results of a semi-quantitative fuzzy cognitive mapping exercise that was conducted with individuals in communities read more »

Podcast episode on social sciences in protected area management

Team member Dana Johnson shared thoughts about challenges facing protected areas in developed countries during an episode of the Marine Conservation Happy Hour podcast. While natural science is usually the focus of this podcast, social science was featured in this episode, centered around the question, “is natural or social science more important for protected area management?” read more »

Press Coverage!

The College of ACES here at the University of Illinois has published a recent story on the Denali Project.  This article covers a broad overview of the project including what our goals are and how we are meeting these goals. Here’s a short snippet from our very own Dr. Carena van Riper: “As part of read more »

March 2019 Visit

Our team has returned from another productive trip to the Denali! During our March visit, we had the opportunity to continue meeting folks in the local communities, conduct interviews, and facilitate focus groups. We learned about the ways people characterize the Denali region through four focus groups in Cantwell, Anderson, and McKinley Village. In-depth interviews read more »

January 2019 Update

This January, Professors Carena van Riper and Bill Stewart from our team took a trip to Malmo, Sweden for the first ENVISION meeting. ENVISION is an international project focused on an inclusive approach to assessing integrative scenarios and visions for protected area management. The ongoing research in Denali National Park and Preserve is part of read more »

Fall 2018 Visit

Our research team kicked off our project in Denali this fall. During an October visit we met with several folks living in local communities who were interested in hearing more about our project. Many were excited about the prospect of this study and expressed interest in being involved. We met with representatives from the National read more »