**Draft 2006 NPS Management Policies**

**Glossary**

**Accessibility**—individuals with disabilities are able to reach, use, understand or appreciate NPS programs, facilities and services, or those individuals have the same benefits available to persons without disabilities.  See also, “universal design.” 

**Accession**— a transaction whereby a museum object or specimen is acquired for a museum collection.  Accessions include gifts, exchanges, purchases, field collections, loans, and transfers.

**Adaptive management**—[is a decision process that] promotes flexible decision-making that can be adjusted in the face of uncertainties as outcomes from management actions and other events become better understood.  Careful monitoring of these outcomes both advances scientific understanding and helps adjust policies or operations as part of an iterative learning process.  Adaptive management also recognizes the importance of natural variability in contributing to ecological resilience and productivity.  It is not a “trial and error” process, but rather emphasizes learning while doing.  Adaptive management does not represent an end in itself, but rather a means to more effective decisions and enhanced benefits.  Its true measure is how well it helps meet environmental, social, and economic goals, increases scientific knowledge, and reduces tensions among stakeholders. *(Source: National Research Council)*

**Administrative record**— the “paper trail” that documents an agency’s decision-making process and the basis for the agency’s decision.  It includes all materials directly or indirectly considered by persons involved in the decision-making process.  These are the documents that a judge will review to determine whether the process and the resulting agency decision were proper, and that future managers will use to understand the evolution of the issue(s) and how decisions were reached and made. 

**Appropriate use—**see “Terms and Concepts” in the Introduction.****

**Archeological resource**— any material remains or physical evidence of past human life or activities that are of archeological interest, including the record of the effects of human activities on the environment. An archeological resource is capable of revealing scientific or humanistic information through archeological research. 

**Backcountry**— refers to primitive, undeveloped portions of parks, some of which may be categorized as “wilderness.” 

**Best available technology –**the use of the latest technology that will result in fewer impacts at the same level of use.

**Best management practices (BMPs)**— practices that apply the most current means and technologies available to not only comply with mandatory environmental regulations, but also maintain a superior level of environmental performance.  See also, “sustainable practices/ principles.” 

**Carrying Capacity –**the maximum population of a particular species that a particular region can support without hindering future generations’ ability to maintain the same population.  A visitor, or user, carrying capacity is the type and level of use that can be accommodated while sustaining the desired resource and visitor experience conditions.

**Civic Engagement** – is a continuous, dynamic conversation with the public on many levels that reinforces the commitment of both NPS and the public to the preservation of heritage resources, both cultural and natural, and strengthens public understanding of the full meaning and contemporary relevance of these resources.  

**Commemorative work**— any statue, monument, sculpture, plaque, memorial, or other structure or landscape feature, including a garden or memorial grove, designed to perpetuate the memory of a person, group, event, or other significant element of history. 

**Conserve (and Preserve and Protect)**—see “Terms and Concepts” within the Introduction.

**Consultation**— a discussion, conference, or forum in which advice or information is sought or given, or information or ideas are exchanged. Consultation generally takes place on an informal basis; formal consultation requirements for compliance with section 106 of NHPA are published in 36 CFR Part 800. 

**Cooperating associations**— private, nonprofit corporations established under state law which support the educational, scientific, historical, and interpretive activities of the NPS in a variety of ways, pursuant to formal agreements with the Service. 

**Critical habitat**— specific areas within a geographical area occupied by a threatened or endangered species which contain those physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species, and which may require special management considerations or protection; and specific areas outside the geographical area occupied by the species at the time of its listing, upon a determination by the Secretary of the Interior that such areas are essential for the conservation of the species. 

**Cultural landscape**— a geographic area, including cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person, or exhibiting other cultural or esthetic values. There are four non-mutually exclusive types of cultural landscapes: historic sites, historic designed landscapes, historic vernacular landscapes, and ethnographic landscapes. 

**Cultural resource**— an aspect of a cultural system that is valued by or significantly representative of a culture, or that contains significant information about a culture. A cultural resource may be a tangible entity or a cultural practice. Tangible cultural resources are categorized as districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects for the National Register of Historic Places, and as archeological resources, cultural landscapes, structures, museum objects, and ethnographic resources for NPS management purposes. 

**Defensible space**— the space needed for firefighters to adequately defend structures from oncoming wildland fires, or to stop a structural fire before it ignites wildland vegetation.  Defensible space describes the desired result of planning, siting, landscaping and constructing developed facilities in a way that minimizes their vulnerability to wildfire threats and maximizes their protection against wildfire hazards. 

**Derogation—** see “impairment.” 

**Developed area**— an area managed to provide and maintain facilities (e.g., roads, campgrounds, housing) serving visitors and park management functions. Includes areas where park development or intensive use may have substantially altered the natural environment or the setting for culturally significant resources. 

**Directives system**— policy guidance system established by Director’s Order #1 in 1996. The system replaces and updates guidance documents formerly known as NPS Guidelines, Special Directives, and Staff Directives. The system consists of 3 levels: 

**Level 1— NPS Management Policies**— first overview level of the Directives system. 

**Level 2— Director’s Orders**— operational policies and procedures that supplement Level 1. 

**Level 3—** Reference Manuals and other detailed guidance on how to implement Service-wide policies and procedures. 

**Ecosystem**— a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical and biological environment, considered as a unit. 

**Environmental assessment**— a brief NEPA document prepared, with public involvement, (a) to help determine whether the impact of a proposed action or its alternatives could be significant; (b) to aid the NPS in compliance with NEPA by evaluating a proposal that will have no significant impacts, but may have measurable adverse impacts; or (c) as an evaluation of a proposal that is either not described on the list of categorically excluded actions, or is on the list, but exceptional circumstances apply. 

**Environmental impact statement**— a detailed NEPA analysis document prepared, with extensive public involvement, when a proposed action or alternatives have the potential for significant impact on the human environment. 

**Environmental leadership**— advocating, on a personal and organizational level, cooperative conservation, best management practices, best available technology, adaptive management, and the principles of sustainability, and making decisions that demonstrate a commitment to those practices and principles. 

**Ethnographic landscape**— an area containing a variety of natural and cultural resources that traditionally associated people define as heritage resources.  The area may include plant and animal communities, structures, and geographic features, each with their own special local names. 

**Ethnographic resources**— objects and places, including sites, structures, landscapes, and natural resources, with traditional cultural meaning and value to associated peoples.  Research and consultation with associated people identifies and explains the places and things they find culturally meaningful.  Ethnographic resources eligible for the National Register of Historic Places are called traditional cultural properties. 

**Gateway community**— a community that exists in close proximity to a unit of the national park system, whose residents and elected officials are often effected by the decisions made in the course of managing the park, and whose decisions may effect the resources of the park.  Because of this, there are shared interests and concerns regarding decisions.  Gateway communities usually offer food, lodging, and other services to park visitors.  They also provide opportunities for employee housing, and a convenient location to purchase goods and services essential to park administration. 

**Geologic resources**— features produced from the physical history of the earth, or processes such as exfoliation, erosion and sedimentation, glaciation, karst or shoreline processes, seismic, and volcanic activities. 

**General management plan (GMP)**— a plan which clearly defines direction for resource preservation and visitor use in a park, and serves as the basic foundation for decision making. GMPs are developed with broad public involvement. 

**Historic property**— a district, site, building, structure, or object significant in the history of American archeology, architecture, culture, engineering, or politics at the national, state, or local level. 

**Impact**— the likely effects of an action or proposed action upon specific natural, cultural, or socioeconomic resources. Impacts may be direct, indirect, individual, cumulative, beneficial, or adverse. (Also see **Unacceptable impacts** in “Terms and Concepts” within the Introduction.)

**Impairment**—see “Terms and Concepts” in the Introduction.

**Implementation plan**— a plan that focuses on how to implement an activity or project needed to achieve a long- term goal.  An implementation plan may direct a specific project or an ongoing activity. 

**Integrated pest management**— a decision-making process that coordinates knowledge of pest biology, the environment, and available technology to prevent unacceptable levels of pest damage, by cost- effective means, while posing the least possible hazard to people, resources, and the environment. 

**Leave-no-trace (LNT**)— principles and practices that emphasize the ethic of leaving a place free and clear of the residual evidence of human presence; applied to all forms of recreation management within wilderness or backcountry areas. 

**Life cycle costing (analysis)**— an accounting method that analyzes the total costs of a product or service, including construction, maintenance, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, useful life, salvage, and disposal. 

**Lightscape management (natural ambient)**— the effective use of good design to appropriately light areas and minimize or eliminate light clutter, the spill over of light into areas where light is not wanted and light pollution, all of which wastes energy, and impacts park visitors, neighbors and resources. 

**Management prescriptions**— a planning term referring to statements about desired resource conditions and visitor experiences, along with appropriate kinds and levels of management, use, and development for each park area. 

**Mission-critical**— something that is essential to the accomplishment of an organization’s core responsibilities. 

**Mitigation**— a modification of a proposal to lessen the intensity of its impact on a particular resource. 

**National park system**— the sum total of the land and water now or hereafter administered by the Secretary of the Interior through the National Park Service for park, monument, historic, parkway, recreational or other purposes. 

**Native Americans**— includes American Indians, Alaska Natives, native peoples of the Caribbean, native Hawaiians, and other native Pacific islanders. 

**NEPA process**— the objective analysis of a proposed action to determine the degree of its impact on the natural, physical, and human environment; alternatives and mitigation that reduce that impact; and the full and candid presentation of the analysis to, and involvement of, the interested and affected public – as required of federal agencies by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. 

**Organic Act (NPS)**— the 1916 law (and subsequent amendments) that created the National Park Service and assigned it responsibility to manage the national parks. 

**Paleontological/paleoecological resources**— resources such as fossilized plants, animals, or their traces, including both organic and mineralized remains in body or trace form. Paleontological resources are studied and managed in their paleoecological context (that is, the geologic data associated with the fossil that provides information about the ancient environment). 

**Park**— Any one of the hundreds of areas of land and water administered as part of the national park system.  The term is used interchangeably in this document with “unit,” “park unit,” and “park area.” 

**Preserve (and Conserve and Protect)**—see “Terms and Concepts” in the Introduction.

**Professional Judgment**—One of the major responsibilities of park superintendents is to make decisions that affect the future of the parks they manage.  Some of these decisions, and those made by other managers at the park, regional, and national level, have the potential for major and long-term consequences.  These Management Policies are intended to help shape those decisions, promote a degree of consistency in the decision-making process, and help to ensure the long-term protection of each park’s integrity.  However, in virtually all situations, the quality of the decisions that are made will depend largely on the professional judgment of the decision-maker. That is why these Management Policies frequently refer to management decisions being based on the “professional judgment” of NPS managers.  For the purposes of these Management Policies, professional judgment means a decision or opinion that is shaped by study and analysis and full consideration of all the relevant facts, and taking into account 

· the decision-maker’s education, training, and experience; 

· advice or insights offered by subject matter experts and others who have relevant knowledge and experience; 

· good science and scholarship; and, whenever appropriate, 

· the results of civic engagement and public involvement activities relating to the decision.    

**Public involvement**—(also called public participation) is the active involvement of the public in NPS planning and decision-making processes.  Public involvement is a process that occurs on a continuum that ranges from providing information and building awareness, to partnering in decision-making.

**Record of decision (ROD)**— the document which is prepared to substantiate a decision based on an analysis of a range alternatives (e.g., an EIS).  When applicable, it includes a detailed discussion of rationale and reasons for choosing a particular alternative or not adopting all mitigation measures analyzed. 

**Sacred sites**— certain natural and cultural resources treated by Native Americans as sacred places having established religious meaning, and as locales of private ceremonial activities. 

**Scholarship**—knowledge resulting from study and research in a particular field, or the mastery of a particular area of learning reflected in a scholar's work.  A scholar is a learned person; someone who by long study has gained mastery in one or more disciplines and practices, and whose mastery is recognized by a peer group. 

**Soundscape (natural)**—the aggregate of all the natural, nonhuman-caused sounds that occur in parks, together with the physical capacity for transmitting natural sounds. 

**Stakeholder**— an individual, group, or other entity that has a strong interest in decisions concerning park resources and values.  Stakeholders may include, for example, recreational user groups, permittees, and concessioners.  In the broadest sense, all Americans are stakeholders in the national parks. 

**Stewardship**— the cultural and natural resource protection ethic of employing the most effective concepts, techniques, equipment, and technology to prevent, avoid, or mitigate impacts that would compromise the integrity of park resources. 

**Strategic plan**— a Service-wide, 5-year plan required by GPRA (5 USC 306) in which the NPS states (1) how it plans to accomplish its mission during that time, and (2) the value it expects to produce for the tax dollars expended. Similarly, each park, program, or central office has its own strategic plan, which considers the Service-wide mission plus its own particular mission. Strategic plans serve as “performance agreements” with the American people. 

**Superintendent**— the senior on-site NPS official in a park. Used interchangeably with “park superintendent,” “park manager,” or “unit manager.” 

**Sustainable design**— design that applies the principles of ecology, economics, and ethics to the business of creating necessary and appropriate places for people to visit, live, and work. Development that has a sustainable design, sits lightly upon the land, demonstrates resource efficiency, and promotes ecological restoration and integrity, thus improving the environment, the economy, and society. 

**Sustainable practices/principles**— those choices, decisions, actions and ethics that will best achieve ecological/ biological integrity; protect qualities and functions of air, water, soil, and other aspects of the natural environment; and preserve human cultures. Sustainable practices allow for use and enjoyment by the current generation, while ensuring that future generations will have the same opportunities for use and enjoyment. See also, “environmental leadership” and “best management practices.” 

**Traditional**— pertains to recognizable, but not necessarily identical, cultural patterns transmitted by a group across at least two generations. Also applies to sites, structures, objects, landscapes, and natural resources associated with those patterns. Popular synonyms include “ancestral” and “customary.” 

**Traditionally associated peoples**—. For purposes of these Management Policies, social/ cultural entities such as tribes, communities, and kinship units, as well as park neighbors, traditional residents, and former residents who remain attached to a park area despite having relocated, are “traditionally associated” with a particular park when (1) the entity regards park resources as essential to its development and continued identity as a culturally distinct people; (2) the association has endured for at least two generations (40 years); and (3) the association began prior to establishment of the park. 

**Traditional cultural property**— a property associated with cultural practices, beliefs, the sense of purpose, or existence of a living community that is rooted in that community’s history or is important in maintaining its cultural identity and development as an ethnically distinctive people. Traditional cultural properties are ethnographic resources eligible for listing in the National Register.

**Tread Lightly ®--**a private, nonprofit organization that promotes responsible outdoor use to help recreationists minimize their impact on the environment, with a core focus on the ethical use of motorized and mechanized vehicles on both land and water. 

**Unacceptable impacts**—see “Terms and Concepts” in the Introduction.

**Universal design**— the design of products and environments to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. 

**Value analysis/ value engineering**— an organized, multi-disciplined team effort that analyzes the functions of facilities, processes, systems, equipment, services, and supplies for the purpose of achieving essential functions at the lowest lifecycle cost consistent with required performance, reliability, quality, and safety. 

**Visitor**— anyone who visits a park. 

**Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) framework**— a visitor carrying capacity planning process applied to determine the desired resource and visitor experience conditions, and used as an aid to decision-making. 

**Waiver (of policy)**— an exemption from a particular policy provision. A waiver may be granted only by the Director of the National Park Service or a higher authority (e.g., the Secretary of the Interior). 

**Wilderness (area)**— federal land that has been designated by Congress as a component of the national wilderness preservation system. For the purpose of applying these policies, “wilderness” includes the categories of proposed, recommended, and designated wilderness. Potential wilderness may be a subset of any of these five categories. 

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