Outcome 2 Case Study
"Strengthened Relationships and Communication"
Strengthened relationships and communication are illustrated by a USDA Forest Service employee
involved with the Rural Community Assistance Program.
"In about the last four or five years, through community projects in our forest, the community of Ducktown
has turned the corner in building community trust. When we are active and work with our communities and with our
district ranger and others, everything goes easier. If we participate in the community, community residents can
look at us in the Forest Service and say, `These people are for real, they want to help. I am not going to object
to their timber sale or road construction or new campground. We can trust them.' There is this thing called trust.
"I was with the county commissioner yesterday, a guy named Mike Stennet. Our timber staff officer and I went
to see him just to talk and have a visit about several things. He said, `Guys, I want to tell you, in the last
several years you all have shown our county that you want to be a neighbor.' That is what we are after.
"We want to be a good neighbor. The Forest Service often owns 50 or 60 percent of a county; it had better
be a good neighbor. It owns half of the county and gives 25 percent returns to compensate the county for not collecting
taxes. What does that amount to? Seventy-five cents an acre? That's nothing. We have to be a better neighbor than
that. We used to be able to fall back on the job opportunities we offered. This is not true today. Our workforce
has slimmed down so much that we don't have bragging rights there any more. At the same time my budget for community
projects certainly isn't growing in the age of balanced budgets. Good relations not only help in time of change,
be it timber sales or new roads, but they also allow me to match my budget up with others to really help the community.
"We are working with a little 400-student elementary school over here-Ducktown Elementary School-on a project,
the Ducktown Green-Gold Conservancy. The school owns a land conservancy that adjoins school grounds. Located on
the conservancy is one of the southernmost native cranberry bogs in the United States. The school building is a
rather ornate building originally constructed as a college. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The college never materialized and it instead became a grammar school. The school has restructured its curriculum
to utilize the conservancy for fieldwork. Additionally, Ducktown recently purchased more acreage to use as part
of a trail to connect the conservancy to the Ducktown Basin Museum for a complete interpretive trail on the environmental
history of the Copper Basin.
"We went to see the county commissioner yesterday partly because he also owns a pallet mill, and we are looking
for donations of lumber to make a boardwalk out near a beaver pond so that Ducktown school kids can go there to
study the beavers and the environment. We went to him to see if he would be able to join us in the project. We
did not have the budget to buy lumber. Lacking money we promised to put up a nice partner sign saying, These materials
donated by Mike Stennet Pallet Mill. Stennet thought about it and said, `Hey, you know that's a good idea. It shows
that I am a partner. It shows I am part of the community. It shows that I think environmental education is important.'
Then you just say bingo. You have scored one point for the neighborhood.
"It is like another project we did with five local schools. Again we didn't bring any money. We brought support
and the national forest as an outdoor lab. The schools want to help keep children in the community, to displace
the all-too-common goal of moving to the city to work in the carpet mill or something else. They wanted to encourage
young people to stay home and to fill the needs in the community and thought that learning about the forest might
develop in the young people a sense of place. Hopefully, an outdoor lab can encourage the young people to stay
home and to realize they have a good place here. People look at the ecosystem, giving them a sense of value and
a reason o stay home, and there is a way to make money here without going off."
These are just two examples of community projects that have expanded and enhanced the educational opportunities
for the children of our region. While the development of an outdoor classroom or a beaver viewing presents an accomplishment,
a greater success lies in networks that created them. This forester recognizes the importance of strengthened relationships
and community for healthy communities and works to involve a wide variety of people and organizations in his projects
as an investment in the future.
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