News Release

New Publication - Stewardship Begins With People: An Atlas of Places, People, and Handmade Products

Date: March 22, 2007

The National Park Service Conservation Study Institute has released a new publication entitled Stewardship Begins with People: An Atlas of Places, People, and Handmade Products. The Atlas tells the many stories of friends and neighbors of national parks, national heritage areas, and national historic landmarks who are practicing a stewardship ethic and demonstrating a commitment to sustainability. The publication chronicles people’s work and craftsmanship and how their products add value to the preservation of authentic traditional cultures and significant cultural landscapes in and around national parks. The Atlas was undertaken to both recognize and encourage this often intergenerational stewardship and explore new ways national park areas and their neighbors can work together.

The stories in Stewardship Begins with People: An Atlas of Places, People, and Handmade Products come from two dozen national park areas - from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Hawaiian Islands - and were selected as illustrative of many similar efforts and enterprises. At first glance this “park atlas” may appear to be a little different from conventional map-oriented cousins. Like other atlases, this one helps us to understand the geography of people and special places and helps us gain a deeper appreciation of a special relationship many of our park neighbors and gateway communities have with their national parks.

The Atlas was assembled with the help of the park managers, cooperating associations, concessionaires, craftspeople and producers from all around the national park system who contributed the many stories and photographs that fill the 58 page publication. Highlighted parks include Blue Ridge Parkway, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Haleakala National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Sitka National Historical Park and many others. 

Stewardship Begins with People: An Atlas of Places, People, and Handmade Products is a cooperative project of the National Park Service Conservation Study Institute, National Park Service Northeast Region, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, Shelburne Farms National Historic Landmark, Eastern National, and Quebec-Labrador Foundation/Atlantic Center for the Environment.

The National Park Service Conservation Study Institute advances innovation in collaborative conservation for the stewardship of our national system of parks and special places.