people working with people toward riparian understanding janice staats national riparian service...
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People Working with People Toward Riparian
Understanding
Janice StaatsNational Riparian Service
Team
1981
2000
1991
Burro Creek, AZBureau of Land Management
Riparian restoration will not happen by regulation, changes in the law, more money, or any of the normal bureaucratic approaches. It will
only occur through the integration of ecological, economic, and social
factors, and participation of affected interests.
What is Creeks & Communities?
• Multi-party approach for all lands where interest exists in improving riparian condition
• Created in 1996 by BLM and USFS with other agencies and cooperating partners
• Mission: Achieving Healthy Streams (and wetlands) Through Bringing People Together
Present principals and practices
Share lessons learned from Creeks & Communities
Principles & Practices
• Network
• Natural resources and social science
• Bring affected interests together to build working relationships and create learning environments
• Public meetings, kitchen table discussions, potlucks
Principles & Practices
Principles & Practices
• Deliver the message that function builds values in these dynamic systems
Principles & Practices
• Help people develop and implement their own solutions– socially practical– financially
practical– for those
required to make them work
Lessons Learned
• Awareness building for all
• Plus, need for in-depth professional level training and work experiences to develop expertise
Lessons Learned
• Work with the willing
• You will stay plenty busy
• Over time, more people will become willing
Lessons Learned• Celebrate when
current management is allowing improvement even though habitat attributes are not fully developed yet
• Streams and their associated riparian areas can fix themselves, but it takes time and cycles of floods and droughts
1991
1981
2000
Lessons Learned
• The rancher said to the riparian specialists – “How the heck do my cows hurt fish?”
• The landowner said to the riparian specialists – “My stream looks better than it did 20 years ago? What in the world do you want?”
Lessons Learned
• Human nature to want to DO something……–“The faster the
fix, the higher the risk, the greater the cost.” Wayne Elmore
Lessons Learned
• Professional disagreements - what to do?
Lessons Learned
• Facilitation
Lessons Learned
• Leadership and persistence are required– "Never, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, give up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up." Winston Churchill
Take Home Message
There’s more than one to do it, but sometimes consistency is not a bad thing either. Perl motto
Accelerate cooperative riparian restoration and management