About Us

The Central Alaska Network is composed of 3 national park units:
•  Denali National Park and Preserve (DENA)
•  Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST)
•  Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve (YUCH).

The parks of the Central Alaska Network lie in an area that stretches northward from the Gulf of Alaska, transects 4 major mountain ranges, and crosses the banks of the upper Yukon River. They contain over 21.7 million acres and makeup 25% of all the land in the National Park Service. These parks represent a great diversity of climate and landform, from temperate rainforests to glaciated mountain ranges. What they share in common are their largely wild and unaltered landscapes. The Central Alaska Network views the parks as vast interconnected communities of life and environment, or ecosystems. The primary goal of the CAKN's Inventory & Monitoring Program is to understand relationships within network ecosystems and to monitor them for change. Such information may then be used by park managers, researchers, educators, and the public for a variety of purposes.

Inventory and Monitoring Networks are responsible for selecting and monitoring the key physical, chemical, and biological resources of their parks. Just as heartbeat and blood pressure are indicators of human health, key environmental "vital signs," such as water quality or species abundance, are indicative of park health. By measuring these ecosystem vital signs, networks will be better able to understand the condition of their parks, as well as provide a reference point for comparisons with altered environments outside their borders.

The Central Alaska Network has developed a list of 37 vital signs for long-term monitoring which encompass the animals, physical elements, human/environment interactions, and plant life in our parks. We have purposefully chosen a broad array of vital signs so that the monitoring program will readily detect unforeseen environmental changes.

» Click Here to Learn More About Vital Signs...