In the Four Corners, environmentalism is a big umbrella, under which thousands of people, hundreds of students and professors, multiple government agencies, several fire district chiefs, many tribal councils and numerous businesses, consultants and nonprofits fall.
But often, their energies are fractured as assorted conservationists pour their resources into different projects, failing to coordinate their activities or pool their knowledge and limited resources.
Next week at Fort Lewis College, the hope is that the Four Corners’ erstwhile divided environmentalists will enjoy new-found unity because of the firstever Connecting for Conservation in the Four Corners.
The workshop combines the practicality of speed dating – Who are you? What do you do? can we get together? – With the lofty spirit of collaboration embodied by the Olympics, the United Nations and Wikipedia.
Jimbo Buickerood of San Juan Citizens Alliance said the sheer array of groups attending the workshop is stunning.
“I’m optimistic,” he said, “but I’m expecting 150 people.
“Basically, it’s a big networking call for people involved in conservation,” he said. “Hopefully, it will catalyze and kindle relationships and ideas, like a World’s Fair.”
He said a few basic political realities had inspired the event, which has taken months to organize. Even for urgent projects such as cleaning up watersheds and preventing forest fires money is limited, and accomplishing anything often depends on local authorities in many jurisdictions reaching agreement on a single plan of action. And in the absence of full communication, environmentalists often repeat, as opposed to advance, each others’ efforts, meaning many noble endeavors never mature to fruition, let alone get a solid scientific grounding.
“But it’s a lot easier to go in and ask for money if you have three or four partners then your chances really bump up,” Buickerood said.
He pointed to efforts to save endangered fish species in the Lower Dolores River. After years and years of extensive collaboration between the San Juan Citizens Alliance, federal and state agencies, local water management and irrigation companies as well as input from the conservation and recreation communities, those groups were able to consult scientists, who determined the fish could be saved in part by adjusting releases from the newly built McPhee dam.
“Science-based decision making. What a concept!” Buickerood joked.
Working together also requires identifying common priorities, which can sometimes prove difficult for even the most like-minded activists.
Indeed, Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, is fond of one anecdote about two seemingly kindred advocacy groups based in New York City – one, primarily a feminist group, the other, primarily a black-rights group. Both groups’ leaders were convinced they should help each other; yet after months of frustration, they still failed to find common ground. In Steinem’s telling, they reached a very New York solution, eventually turning to a therapist who specialized in progressive politics. Her advice to the leaders: Set a standing date to hang out together socially, and common projects will emerge naturally.
The same basic insight will animate the goings on at Connecting for Conservation, where the program describes one event, “Round Robin Rendezvous – Speed Networking: Getting to Know You,” as an opportunity for attendees to quickly present themselves and get to grips with their peers in the course of five minutes.
Organizers also will address land mines that too often mar earnest attempts to collaborate during “The School of Hard Knocks – Lessons Learned Panel Discussion” featuring Mark Varien, director of research at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, and Daniel Oppenheimer, restoration coordinator for the Dolores River Restoration Partnership’s Tamarisk Coalition.
Aaron Kimple of Silverton’s Mountain Studies Institute said the main goal of the event is “really to begin to get people to start thinking about how we can strengthen and support collaborative efforts to address conservation needs in the Four Corners. We have a lot of great partnerships going on, but we have to ask, are there ways to deepen them or carry that work forward a little bit?
“I’m super excited for the workshop,” he said.
As in speed dating, he said those willing to put themselves forward would get the most out of the experience.
“I hope people are just willing to open up and see the capabilities of what everybody in the same group is talking about, and be amazed by what’s going on in discussions,” he said.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
If you go
Connecting for Conservation in the Four Corners: Tuesday, Wednesday at Fort Lewis College. A networking opportunity to develop partnerships around conservation. For more information or to register, visit www.mountainstudies.org, call Aaron Kimple at 382-6908 or email akimple@mountainstudies.org.
