Exciting news! After many attempts at creating a useful website (still a work in progress) the Carpenter Creek Community Mapping Project has a new website! This blog is to be continued at http://carpentercreek.ning.com
I hope you like it!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Got to Start Somewhere
The first meeting I held was fun, productive, and interesting, but the turnout was less than what I had hoped. Nonetheless, the three of us had a great conversation about the project and they offered some helpful advice and feedback. So, after doing the Antiochian thing, reflecting, this is what I have taken away from last week:
This is a rare project in its intent, format and application. I have only found a handful of examples that remotely relate to this mapping project making it hard for me to explain it and even harder for many to understand it. Furthermore, I am dedicated to letting this project be malleable so it can take whatever shape is most meaningful for the community. This creates even more ambiguity, which I am coming to realize needs to be met with a bit more structure. To balance this paradox, I think I need to reframe the project so that it is clearer and more structured. This includes being lucid about the end result and uses of the project, how it is going to be sustained over time, and developing clear concise goals.
The second takeaway from this past week is to diversify my tactics. Originally, I thought that I could rally volunteers by advertising the project through various organizations and have them go out into the community to collect historical data. While I think this is an important step, the two participants at the first meeting were telling evidence that this shouldn’t be my only approach. In order to do a thorough job, I will need to take the project to the stakeholders and organizations to collect their knowledge on location. I also want to create a website that would serve as a place where people could learn more about the project, submit stories or photos, and connect with one another- hence the new website.
So, even though only two people showed up to the first meeting, it was still a success! I am reminded of Lappe and Perkins’ statement, “If we show up with our curiosity and take those first, hardest steps, things unfold in their own way, on their own schedule” (2004, 79). I hope you like the new website (work in progress), and thanks again to Barb and Rebecca for showing up!
Lappe, F.M. and Perkins, J. 2004 You Have the Power; Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear. Penguin Books, London. pg 79.
This is a rare project in its intent, format and application. I have only found a handful of examples that remotely relate to this mapping project making it hard for me to explain it and even harder for many to understand it. Furthermore, I am dedicated to letting this project be malleable so it can take whatever shape is most meaningful for the community. This creates even more ambiguity, which I am coming to realize needs to be met with a bit more structure. To balance this paradox, I think I need to reframe the project so that it is clearer and more structured. This includes being lucid about the end result and uses of the project, how it is going to be sustained over time, and developing clear concise goals.
The second takeaway from this past week is to diversify my tactics. Originally, I thought that I could rally volunteers by advertising the project through various organizations and have them go out into the community to collect historical data. While I think this is an important step, the two participants at the first meeting were telling evidence that this shouldn’t be my only approach. In order to do a thorough job, I will need to take the project to the stakeholders and organizations to collect their knowledge on location. I also want to create a website that would serve as a place where people could learn more about the project, submit stories or photos, and connect with one another- hence the new website.
So, even though only two people showed up to the first meeting, it was still a success! I am reminded of Lappe and Perkins’ statement, “If we show up with our curiosity and take those first, hardest steps, things unfold in their own way, on their own schedule” (2004, 79). I hope you like the new website (work in progress), and thanks again to Barb and Rebecca for showing up!
Lappe, F.M. and Perkins, J. 2004 You Have the Power; Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear. Penguin Books, London. pg 79.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Othe Component of Restoration
“Why have we been working on these symptoms for so long and so hard; and even with so many successful programs, why have we seen too little fundamental change?” asks Peter Block in his book Community; The Structure of Belonging. His answer: “a breakdown of community.” When this idea is applied to salmon recovery and stream restoration, it sheds some light on our ongoing struggle to find effective and long lasting solutions.
The question of what causes the deterioration of our streams and rivers is a complex question indeed, but one that is worth some heavy consideration. We can identify the physical threats such as dams, culverts, clear cutting, erosion and so on, and consequently we have put in place regulations such as permits and fines. However, the conditions of our streams and salmon populations continue to decline. How is it that even though we know that these and similar degrading activities greatly impact watersheds, they continue to happen anyway. It’s not that the people who build dams, overgraze riparian areas, or clear cut in sensitive drainages have malicious intentions to destroy streams and deserve all the blame. Rather it seems like the root of the problem is that as a society we allow this to happen. Why? Perhaps it is because of this “breakdown of community” that Block suggests. We have lost touch with our rivers and streams to such an extent that these violations have become normalized. Not on purpose of course, but as a result of our overbooked lives and the shortsighted nature of our culture. Majority of us have forgotten the services these streams provide and how important they are for the health of the surrounding communities, humans included.
It seems like if we really want to get in front of these destructive patterns, we need to begin to restore our personal relationships with our watersheds. When people have a strong connection to an area, it seems like they are more likely to ensure that it is properly taken care of. Finding ways to reconnect communities to the local streams and rivers becomes the other component to the physical environmental restoration projects. If the restoration community can find ways to validate and help cultivate these relationships, we will then start to get ahead in the protection and preservation of our watersheds.
Block, P. 2008. Community; The Structure of Belonging. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., CA. pg.34
The question of what causes the deterioration of our streams and rivers is a complex question indeed, but one that is worth some heavy consideration. We can identify the physical threats such as dams, culverts, clear cutting, erosion and so on, and consequently we have put in place regulations such as permits and fines. However, the conditions of our streams and salmon populations continue to decline. How is it that even though we know that these and similar degrading activities greatly impact watersheds, they continue to happen anyway. It’s not that the people who build dams, overgraze riparian areas, or clear cut in sensitive drainages have malicious intentions to destroy streams and deserve all the blame. Rather it seems like the root of the problem is that as a society we allow this to happen. Why? Perhaps it is because of this “breakdown of community” that Block suggests. We have lost touch with our rivers and streams to such an extent that these violations have become normalized. Not on purpose of course, but as a result of our overbooked lives and the shortsighted nature of our culture. Majority of us have forgotten the services these streams provide and how important they are for the health of the surrounding communities, humans included.
It seems like if we really want to get in front of these destructive patterns, we need to begin to restore our personal relationships with our watersheds. When people have a strong connection to an area, it seems like they are more likely to ensure that it is properly taken care of. Finding ways to reconnect communities to the local streams and rivers becomes the other component to the physical environmental restoration projects. If the restoration community can find ways to validate and help cultivate these relationships, we will then start to get ahead in the protection and preservation of our watersheds.
Block, P. 2008. Community; The Structure of Belonging. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., CA. pg.34
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
What is the Carpenter Creek Community Mapping Project?
As the human population booms in the Puget Sound area and the salmon numbers decline, it is becoming increasingly more vital that restoration projects are implemented in ways that are conducive to both the ecosystems and local communities. Surrounding communities are likely to be affected by stream restoration and habitat improvement projects, but often have a very limited role in their creation. The absence of meaningful public participation and engagement can divide the community, delay the project, increase the expense, and result in a plan that does not reflect the values of the community. The history and local knowledge found within a watershed can be used as a valuable tool to connect people to place, give voice to the community, and provide important information for restoration efforts. The Carpenter Creek Community Mapping Project is an attempt to weave together science, history and local knowledge within the watershed.
The goal of this project is to have community members collect historical data and local knowledge of the Carpenter Creek watershed. Volunteers will be asked to conduct interviews with residents, search libraries and museums for relevant information, including maps and photos, and to inquire with fellow citizens the reasons they value Carpenter Creek. The data will be used to create an interactive web-based map that depicts the community’s historical and current relationship with the drainage. Each piece of information will be linked to its relevant place on the map helping to create a more complete story of the watershed.
It is anticipated that by doing this project we can gain a better understanding of how the valuable knowledge found within local communities can be used to help strengthen peoples’ ties to their watershed and contribute to the creation of effective restoration projects. The Carpenter Creek Community Mapping Project will serve as a case study to help answer some of these questions and will hopefully inspire us to look closely at our relationships with our local rivers and streams.
The goal of this project is to have community members collect historical data and local knowledge of the Carpenter Creek watershed. Volunteers will be asked to conduct interviews with residents, search libraries and museums for relevant information, including maps and photos, and to inquire with fellow citizens the reasons they value Carpenter Creek. The data will be used to create an interactive web-based map that depicts the community’s historical and current relationship with the drainage. Each piece of information will be linked to its relevant place on the map helping to create a more complete story of the watershed.
It is anticipated that by doing this project we can gain a better understanding of how the valuable knowledge found within local communities can be used to help strengthen peoples’ ties to their watershed and contribute to the creation of effective restoration projects. The Carpenter Creek Community Mapping Project will serve as a case study to help answer some of these questions and will hopefully inspire us to look closely at our relationships with our local rivers and streams.
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