Collaborative Interpretive Planning on Fire Island

CBI Senior Mediator Stacie Smith and Jon Kohl of  PUP Global Heritage Consortium recently worked closely with the Fire Island National Seashore on a collaborative interpretative planning process. From that process, they helped develop a Visitor Experience Plan that incorpoates what they found vistors want to get out of their time at the park while staying true to the park's long-range interpretive planning goals.

Kathy Krause, Chief of Interpretation at the Fire Island National Seashore, and Jon Kohl reflected on the goals, methods, and outcomes from the planning process recently in the May/June 2018 edition of Legacy magazine in the following article: Collaborative Interpretive Planning Cultivates Community.

This month Jon also contributed to the National Recreation and Park Association's magazine, Parks & Recreation, outlining key recommendations and takeaways for using collaborative planning to not only gather input from the surrounding communities, but also to augment and achieve the park's goals. He stresses the need to set metrics to measure success of any management plan, build community capacity to collaborate, and take on a holistic approach to planning. To read more, you can visit the NRPA's website: Is Community Participation Enough for Park Planning?