APA provides a voice for the packrafting community to engage with access and conservation issues throughout the US. We support effective action by local organizers intimately familiar with issues impacting their backyard, and bring packrafts to the national stage with major projects like our An Arctic Refuge for All Americans campaign, which carried packrafts to the halls of Congress in Washington D.C.
Our Active Issues page is a work in progress featuring just a few of the issues APA is tracking. If you have questions or concerns about these, or any other access and conservation issues relevant to the packrafting community, please reach out to us at access@packraft.org.
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Status: URGENT
The 20-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the “Last Great Wilderness”, a place sacred to many, central to the culture of multiple Alaskan tribes, and one of the few remaining intact ecosystems untouched by modern man. At stake is the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, a rich tundra that provides critical habitat for polar bears, muskox, caribou, and more than 200 species of migratory birds. All of which are under threat by climate change. Few people really understand the Arctic Refuge’s true value — and what will be lost with industrialized oil and gas development.
Status: MONITORING
The Gila River is New Mexico's last free flowing river with around 200 miles of unspoiled, navigable waterways within American's first designated wilderness. In 2020, local conservationists won a significant victory in their ongoing efforts to prevent the Gila from being dammed and diverted.
Status: ACTIVE
Canyonlands National Park is one of the wildest national parks in the Lower 48. In recent years, popularity of packrafting in the park has soared, and with good reason. It is a landscape so vast that it might seem immune to human impact, with terrain that makes it an ideal playground for packrafters. In reality, the natural environment of the park is both fragile and unpredictable. Traveling in this high desert landscape comes with great rewards, but requires a great deal of preparedness and responsibility.
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