Main street in downtown Hoonah, Alaska, by David Pollard

Hoonah Stewards

Ecotrust
Ecotrust
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

Supporting stewardship and community resilience in rural Alaska.

By Jon Bonkoski, GIS Director

Hoonah is a small rural community on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska. Many of the residents are Alaska Natives and many, to some degree, live a subsistence lifestyle. Industrial logging operations in the 80s and 90s provided jobs and economic growth, but when most of the easily accessible timber was extracted, jobs dried up and few opportunities have arisen since. To address the economic and environmental challenges faced by the community, a group of federal and state agencies, Alaska Native corporations, the Huna Indian Association, and private NGOs came together to create the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership (HNFP). The partnership is focused on improving the health of the watershed while also building a more diverse and resilient economy through a blend of timber, salmon, and deer harvesting.

A big goal of the HNFP partnership was to involve the greater community in decision-making around land and watershed management. To do so, the HNFP wanted to create a tool that would enable information exchange and better communication between landowners and managers and residents of the Hoonah community. Because of our experience building decision support tools, they reached out to Ecotrust to support these efforts.

Now, the Hoonah Stewards tool — a mobile-first platform that responds to needs of both land managers and community members alike — is currently in development.

The initial phase of our tool development process takes a variety of technical elements into consideration, but is still fairly analog: lots of listening. With focused outreach and multiple rounds of surveys, we were able to determine basic tool features and functions that satisfy the variety of needs identified and and prioritize future updates.

→ Continue reading


About Ecotrust
Ecotrust is powered by the vision of a world where people and nature thrive together. Since 1991, we have partnered with local communities from California to Alaska to build new ways of living and doing business. From forestry to finance, food access to green building, we work to advance social equity, economic opportunity, and environmental well-being. Together, we are making this place we live a home that we love. Learn more at ecotrust.org. Follow us @ecotrust. Sign up to hear from us.

Written by

Ecotrust

Building a world where people and nature thrive together. Join us at ecotrust.org.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade