Petrified Forest National Park: Long-Range Interpretive Plan

Petrified Forest National Park

This Long-Range Interpretive Plan (LRlP) for Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) is a component of the Park's Comprehensive Interpretive Plan (CIP), as outlined in the National Park Service Interpretive Guidelines (NPS-6). Using the park's mission, purpose, resource significance statements, plus the primary interpretive themes and visitor experience goals, this plan articulates the vision for the park's interpretive future, and recommends the media and programs best suited for meeting visitor needs, achieving management goals, and telling the park stories. These foundation elements come directly from or are based on similar statements in the park's Strategic Plan and the 1992 General Management Plan. The park is currently undergoing a GMP Revision to address issues that are no longer valid in the 1992 GMP. The GMP Revision will address visitor experience, space utilization and compatible use of historic structures. Plan completion is scheduled for 2003. The last interpretive plan for the park was completed in 1986. Since then, a number of changes have occurred (or are proposed) in facility use, resource knowledge, interpretive themes and media, and management goals. The existing visitor centers are no longer able to effectively accommodate increased visitation. In addition, both visitor centers and the Painted Desert Inn are managed as historic structures, and as such, present challenges in preserving architectural character while continuing to meet increased visitor demand. The park's active and ongoing research programs continually add to the resource knowledge base, and sometimes require changes in interpretive themes and media. Theft of petrified wood represents an ever-present resource threat, and the park continually seeks better ways to affect visitor behavior in this regard. This plan is not an end in itself, but rather, it establishes the overall framework for the next phases of the process-program planning, and media planning, design, and production over the next 10-J 5 years. Further, as stated in NPS-6, the park also needs to develop Annual Implementation Plans and an Interpretive Database to complete the CIP.