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