Led by WWA Investigator Danya Rumore, the initiative leverages research, education, and capacity-building to assist communities, land managers, and others in gateway and natural amenity regions throughout the West in preparing for and responding to planning, development, natural resource management, and public policy challenges. Seth Arens is collaborating with Rumore to leverage the infrastructure and relationships developed by the GNAR Initiative to identify underserved, rural community concerns related to natural hazards and collaboratively develop tools and resources to increase their socio-economic and environmental resilience. Additionally, the GNAR Initiative has formed partnerships with a number of gateway communities in the WWA region, which may be useful for future WWA work with those communities. Many GNAR communities are experiencing, or likely soon will experience significant growth and development pressure, putting further strain on resources, and creating urgency for long-range planning. Many of them also have few, if any, paid planning staff and do not have the resources for long-range planning and hazard resilience. Additionally, many communities have disproportionately high Latinx or immigrant populations, and due to their reliance on service, tourism, and/or agricultural industries, some have significant problems with income inequality and equity.