Natural Resource Challenge

For the more information about the natural resources of the National Park Service, please visit http://www.nature.nps.gov/.

Network Programs

An NPS IT specialist deploys a wildlife acoustics sound monitor to monitor bird and wood frog activity in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. The program is part of the Central Alaska I&M Network's lake monitoring effort. NPS photo by Heidi Kristenson.

The complexity of the natural resource issues facing parks today necessitates communication and cooperation among all levels of the National Park Service and beyond. Four Challenge-initiated programs—Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units, Exotic Plant Management Teams, Inventory and Monitoring Networks, and Research Learning Centers—facilitate this coordination. These programs organize parks into biogeographic networks, allowing them to accomplish much more together than they could individually. The networks work closely with park, regional, and national natural resource programs; federal and state agencies; universities; nonprofit organizations; and other partners to accomplish shared resource protection goals.

Last Updated: May 03, 2012