Outreach & Community Involvement

Outreach activities and products focus on natural resource agencies and the interest of spill-affected communities, such as Cordova, Alaska.

Who We Are

Katrina Hoffman, Outreach and Community Involvement Lead

Hayley Hoover, Outreach Specialist

Why?

The Outreach and Community Involvement activities are important to ensure that stakeholders and the general public have broad access to program findings and results. These activities are focused on exchanging information with Trustee Agency managers and community members with interests in the spill area.

Where?

Outreach and community involvement activities will be completed throughout the EVOS region, with a focus on Prince William Sound and lower Cook Inlet.

How?

The focus of the outreach effort within the Gulf Watch Alaska program is to ensure up-to-date information is provided through our website. The website includes overviews of the various components and descriptions of the individual projects and their findings. The website is also an easy place to find synthesized research, general information, and publications and other information products developed by the program. The findings of the projects are updated each winter as the field data and new findings become available.

The Gulf Watch Alaska program is committed to involvement with local and Alaska Native communities. The primary method for engaging in local communities is through active engagement and coordination with the Community Organized Restoration and Learning (CORaL) Network, which is funded by EVOSTC. Our intent as a program is to provide effective and meaningful community involvement that complements the work of the CORaL Network and allows communities to engage directly with scientists based on local interests.

In addition, we continue to rotate the location of annual principal investigator meetings to allow community involvement with project teams. The public is invited to participate in our annual meetings. Similarly, program management team members and select project teams may engage, when appropriate, the leaders of local organizations in the spill-affected area who may have a direct interest in the data or products generated by Gulf Watch Alaska.