Program Areas

The Planning Program Area develops a vision and goals for historic preservation throughout the State based on analyses of resource data and stakeholder needs.

The Survey Program Area focuses on locating, identifying, and evaluating historic and archaeological resources while the Inventory Program area focuses on the maintenance and use of previously gathered information on the absence, presence, and of ethnographic and archaeological resources within the State. The types of survey we conduct primarily include intensive level, reconnaissance, and development projects.

The Kosrae Historic Properties and Sites Register Program Area is involved with activity directly pertinent to the documentation and evaluation of a historic or archeological resource for its potential eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Review and Compliance Program Area reviews or comments on State, local, Federal, or private-sector historic preservation plans or historic preservation components of plans for compatibility with the State Plan or with State law. Activities undertaken pursuant to State or local planning laws, regulations, or ordinances, provided that the laws, regulations, and ordinances are not inconsistent with the Secretary’s “Standards for Archeology and Historic Preservation.”

Development Program Area describes State activities that assist the material conservation, protection, and preservation (both physical and legal) of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places. They include activities to acquire, preserve, stabilize, rehabilitate, restore, and reconstruct historic resources.

Within these five program areas, our office administration documents tangible and intangible material culture and hosts a museum. ‘Intangible’ refers to the inability to touch something while tangible refers to the ability of something to be touched. Material culture refers to the creation of something by humans, whether it can be touched or not. Therefore, the field of anthropology considers landscapes ascribed with meaning as intangible cultural material.