[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 245 (Wednesday, December 21, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 79212-79213]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-32635]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-NRSS-1211-9104; 9865-PZS]


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Information 
Collection for Community Harvest Assessments for Alaskan National Parks 
and Preserves

AGENCY: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: To comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), we 
(the National Park Service) are notifying the public that we have 
submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) an information 
collection request (ICR) for a proposed new collection. This notice 
provides the public and other Federal agencies an opportunity to 
comment on the paperwork burden of this collection. To comply with the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and as a part of our continuing efforts 
to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, we invite the general public 
and other federal agencies to comment on this ICR. We may not conduct 
or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection 
unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

DATES: To ensure that your comments on this ICR are considered, please 
submit them on or before January 20, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Please submit written comments on this information 
collection directly to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office 
of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Attention: Desk Officer for the 
Department of the Interior via email to [email protected] or fax 
at (202) 395-5806; and identify your submission as 1024-WRST. Please 
also send a copy your comments to Phadrea Ponds, Information 
Collections Coordinator, National Park Service, 1201 Oakridge Drive, 
Fort Collins, CO 80525 (mail); or [email protected] (email).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Barbara Cellarius, Ph.D., Wrangell-St. 
Elias National Park and Preserve, P.O. Box 439, Copper Center, AK 
99573; [email protected] (email). You may access this ICR at 
www.reginfo.gov.

I. Abstract

    The National Park Service (NPS) Act of 1916, 38 Stat 535, 16 U.S.C. 
1, et seq., requires that the NPS preserve national parks for the use 
and enjoyment of present and future generations. At the field level, 
this means resource preservation, public education, facility 
maintenance and operation, and physical developments that are necessary 
for public use, health, and safety.
    National parks and preserves in Alaska created or expanded in 1980 
under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) 
provide the opportunity for qualified rural residents to harvest fish, 
wildlife, and other subsistence resources. Section 812 of ANILCA 
states, ``The Secretary [of the Interior], in cooperation with the 
State and other appropriate Federal agencies, shall undertake research 
on fish and wildlife and subsistence uses on the public lands.'' To 
develop resource management strategies for the parklands, the NPS needs 
information on harvest patterns among residents of communities with 
subsistence eligibility, resource distribution systems, and the impact 
of the changing rural economy on subsistence activities. A survey will 
be used to estimate subsistence harvests and to describe community 
subsistence economies. This project will survey residents of several 
communities in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve and Gates 
of the Arctic National Park and Preserve on these topics. The surveyed 
communities have been designated as resident zone communities for the 
respective park in recognition that many residents of these communities 
have customarily and traditionally engaged in subsistence uses within a 
national park or monument. The resulting information will assist park 
managers in their subsistence management responsibilities and will also 
be of use to local and regional advisory councils in making 
recommendations and by the State of Alaska and the Federal Subsistence 
Board in making decisions regarding the management of fish and wildlife 
in the region.

II. Data

    OMB Number: 1024-NEW.
    Title: Community Harvest Assessments for Alaskan National Parks and 
Preserves.
    Type of Request: NEW.
    Affected Public: Individual households eligible to engage in 
subsistence hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering under NPS and 
Federal Subsistence Program regulations in Gates of the Arctic and 
Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks and Preserves.
    Respondent Obligation: Voluntary.
    Estimated Annual Number of Respondents: 302 interviews; 336 non-
response survey.
    Estimated Time and frequency of Response: This is a one-time in-
person interview estimated to take 60 minutes per respondent to 
complete. It is estimated that each respondent will take 10 minutes to 
complete the initial contact and a short non-response survey.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 358 hours.

III. Request for Comments

    On August 5, 2011 we published a Federal Register notice (76 FR 
47609) announcing that we would submit this

[[Page 79213]]

ICR to OMB for approval and soliciting comments. The comment period 
closed on October 4 2011. We received one comment expressing concern 
that residents of other states, such as New Jersey, did not have access 
to these resources. Under the provisions of ANILCA, only rural Alaska 
residents are qualified to engage in subsistence in Alaskan National 
Parks, Preserves and Monuments, and this survey responds directly to 
congressional direction to collect information on subsistence uses 
(ANILCA 812). The commenter also states that it is not necessary to 
conduct these surveys on an annual basis. We agree and are not 
proposing to do so. It has been 10+ years since these communities were 
last surveyed, and we feel that conducting surveys at an interval of 5 
to 10 years between surveys of individual communities will provide 
adequate information for management while not unnecessarily burdening 
the public.
    Comments are invited on: (1) The practical utility of the 
information being gathered; (2) the accuracy of the burden hour 
estimate; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the 
information to be collected; and (4) ways to minimize the burden to 
respondents, including use of automated information techniques or other 
forms of information technology. All comments will become a matter of 
public record. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold 
personal identifying information from public review, we cannot 
guarantee that we will be able to do so.

    Dated: December 15, 2011.
Robert M. Gordon,
Information Collection Clearance Officer, National Park Service.
[FR Doc. 2011-32635 Filed 12-20-11; 8:45 am]
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