On April 16, President Obama signed a presidential memorandum “establishing the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative to promote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors.” Like most things that involve a proclamation, speeches and four-page memorandums with subsections, it’s unclear what exactly America’s Great Outdoors Initiative actually is. And maybe at this point that’s not such a bad thing, because one of the first acts of the AGOI is to conduct a series of nine “Listening Sessions” across the country, one if which is Thursday in Asheville.

Representatives from the Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality will be on hand to hear what you have to say, specifically in the areas of:

• Working land, open space, and landscape conservation
• Outdoor recreation
• Youth engagement and environmental education.
• General discussion

From these meetings, America’s Great Outdoors Initiative hopes to come up with “solutions for building a 21st century conservation and recreation agenda and reconnecting all Americans with the outdoors.” Again, sounds good — especially the “reconnecting all Americans with the outdoors” part — even if we aren’t entirely sure what it means. Thursday’s session in Asheville is your chance to provide some definition to the AGOI.

Here’s the skinny on that meeting.

When: Thursday, 1-4 p.m.
Where: Asheville-Buncombe County Technical Institute, Asheville Campus
340 Victoria Road, Asheville.
Registration: While the event is open, it wouldn’t hurt to pre-register to improve your chances of being heard. Do that by emailing Teresa Lovelace at Teresa_Lovelace@nps.gov.
More info: go here.

Can’t make it? You can share your thoughts here.