The Greater Yellowstone 
Geotourism Stewardship Council

The Geotourism Stewardship Council is a regional advisory committee 
that assists the National Geographic Society in developing the Greater 
Yellowstone Geotourism MapGuide, and provides leadership for promoting 
stewardship and the tenets of geotourism in the region.

The scope of geotourism is broad, encompassing a range of contributors 
to the character of a place—environment, heritage, aesthetics, and culture—
and the well-being of residents and local communities. Council members 
shall represent the many facets of geotourism including community leadership, 
public lands management, food and hospitality sectors, historic preservation, 
natural resources conservation, indigenous peoples, traditional and local arts, 
agriculture, tourism promotion, and others.

Council members serve four roles:

As ambassadors, they represent the MapGuide project and geotourism 
principles within the region. Each Council member is a public face for this project, 
especially in her or his home part of the larger Greater Yellowstone area. This role 
is especially important during the public nomination process, which runs April 15 
through June 30, 2008.

As advisors, they help National Geographic select and refine nominated sites 
and related information to include on the MapGuide. The bulk of this iterative 
process will be completed between mid-June and mid-September 2008.

As collaborators, they help local communities discover their own distinctive 
tourism assets, and encourage collaboration toward common geotourism goals 
across town, county, state, and agency lines.

As visionaries, they look beyond the publication of the MapGuide in Spring 2009, 
to shape other mechanisms through which shared goals of geotourism may be 
pursued in the Greater Yellowstone region.

Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Yellowstone Business Partnership will 
coordinate and support the work of the Council, in collaboration with the 
National Geographic Society. 

Each Council member commits to:

• Participate actively and cooperatively on the Council through March 2009;

• Support and help promote the nominations process in his or her part of 
the region;

• Personally nominate sites;

• Participate in scheduled meetings and conference calls; and

• Provide timely responses during the site selection process, both during 
scheduled review and advisory periods, and to occasional questions posed 
during the later stages of map design, editing, final review, and verification.

As a group, the Council will be guided by the principles embodied in the 
Geotourism Charter and in the definition of geotourism that follows See the geotourism principles at 
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/pdf/geotourism_charter_template.pdf.

Geotourism is tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character 
of a place—its environment, heritage, aesthetics, culture, and the well-being of 
its residents.