From Visioning to Doing: Regenerative Visioning Continues at Confluence
Updated: 5 days ago
What changes when we design systems around the outcomes a place needs, rather than around the silos we’ve inherited?
Over nine workshops this spring, participants in the Alaska Outdoor Alliance’s Regenerative Outdoors Visioning Project (ROVP) explored versions of that question—from infrastructure and livelihoods to health, governance, stewardship and how we measure what matters.
Now we’re releasing the record of those conversations: the workshop recordings, key ideas and questions that emerged from the series.
At the 11th Annual Confluence Summit, September 22–24 in Cordova, we’ll take some of those questions off the Zoom screen and put them in front of the real people in communities, agencies, businesses, funders and policymakers who can help test what they mean in practice.
What surfaced across various workshop sessions is the need to not just measure the outdoor economy, but also measure what the outdoor economy leaves behind. Are ecosystems healthier? Are cultures being carried forward? Are local people able to build livelihoods? Are communities stronger? Are people more connected to place? Are future generations inheriting more possibility rather than less?
Those question emerged from the final ROVP workshop on Measuring What Matters—and they provide a useful lens for much of what we’ll explore in Cordova.
Funding outcomes instead of silos
Communities don’t experience recreation, transportation, health, economic development and quality of life as separate systems—even though our institutions and funding often treat them that way. The ROVP Policy, Co-Stewardship & Governance conversation surfaced exactly this problem: community challenges routinely cross agency boundaries while government programs, responsibilities and funding streams remain divided. Participants asked what could happen if transportation, economic development, health, land management, infrastructure and community wellbeing were considered together.
At Confluence, the Alaska Municipal League will help us put that question to work through a conversation about braided funding. Instead of beginning with Which grant can pay for this?, what if we begin with: what does this place need this investment to accomplish?
A trail, for example, might simultaneously support transportation, preventative health, tourism, workforce attraction and community wellbeing. If the outcomes cross sectors, perhaps the partnerships and funding should too.
What governance structures could better address challenges that cross agency, jurisdictional and disciplinary boundaries?
Ground-truthing: What happens when a community actually tries it?
The ROVP series began with regenerative tourism and a fundamental question: what if communities define what tourism should contribute to a place instead of simply measuring success by more visitors?
Cathy Renfeldt shared Cordova’s work to build tourism around community-defined values and its Regenerative Tourism Strategic Plan. We also heard about RISE, the incubator the Cordova Chamber created to help turn those ideas into real businesses, experiences and community initiatives. At Confluence, we’ll see what happened next.
A spotlight on RISE projects will introduce some of the people actually experimenting with regenerative ideas in Cordova. Regenerative work can’t stop with a framework or strategic plan. Someone eventually has to try something, learn from it and adapt.
What changes when a community defines the outcomes it wants from tourism before deciding how much tourism it wants?
What kind of economy leaves a place stronger?
The ROVP Business & Livelihoods workshop pushed beyond jobs and spending to ask what makes an outdoor economy durable. Participants talked about Alaska-grown career pathways, community capacity, locally rooted businesses and the instability created when good programs depend on one short-term grant after another.
At Confluence, Joel Cladouhos of Sustainable Alaska will lead a conversation that widens that question: how do we build integrated economic systems that create lasting value for the Alaska communities and places from which that value comes?
ROVP participants imagined a future where stewardship itself creates livelihoods, local and Indigenous economies are stronger, young people can build meaningful lives in their communities, and economic growth doesn’t come at the expense of culture or place.
What would tell us whether outdoor recreation and tourism are creating durable local livelihoods and circulating economic benefits within Alaska communities?
→ Explore: Business & Livelihoods
Designing a new economy differently from the beginning
The questions above become especially interesting when an industry is still emerging.
At Confluence, the Alaska Conservation Foundation will lead a Blue Ocean Economy/Kelp Values listening session connected to its Kelp Values work. Open to all Corodovans: 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23 @ Copper River Brewing. Free.
The opportunity isn’t only to ask how industries such as mariculture might grow. It’s to ask, early enough to matter, how economic opportunity can develop alongside ecological health, cultural values and community priorities.
What should sit alongside jobs, spending and economic growth when we decide whether an emerging economy is actually strengthening a place?
Elected Leaders Hold the Keys
Nearly every ROVP conversation eventually ran into policy. Participants raised local control, rural-proofing, planning capacity, cross-agency coordination and the need to bring people closest to a place into decisions earlier. That’s why the Governor’s Candidate Forum on Outdoors & Tourism is part of this conversation too. Open to all Cordovans, Noon, Wednesday, Sept. 23, Noon - 1:15 @ the Cordova Center. Free. BYO lunch.
Alaska’s next governor will help shape the policies, investments and agency relationships that either make cross-sector work easier—or keep reinforcing the silos communities already struggle to navigate.
We want to understand how the candidates see Alaska’s outdoors not simply as a recreation or tourism sector, but as connected to health, transportation, economic development, workforce, culture, conservation and quality of life.
How could Alaska apply a rural-proofing lens to policies, programs and investments before decisions are made?
→ Explore: Policy, Co-Stewardship & Governance
The conversation continues in Cordova
The Regenerative Outdoors Visioning Project was never intended to produce a finished definition of “regenerative” for Alaska. Instead, it was designed to surface better questions, uncover connections and begin building a framework that can be tested against the realities of Alaska places.
The workshop record captures where that conversation has taken us so far. Confluence is one place we can begin testing where it can go next: Braided funding, regenerative tourism, local livelihoods, emerging ocean economies, state policy . . . they may look like different conversations, But underneath them is the same question:
What changes when we design systems around the outcomes a place needs, rather than around the silos we’ve inherited?
Come help us find out in Cordova!
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