Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 8.3.
Volunteers removing invasive plants.
the region. Citizen stewards who work on community forest projects are often moti-
vated to work on other restoration opportunities within Arcata's coastal watersheds.
Typically, city-sponsored volunteer workdays result in more than five thousand hours
of volunteer work per year.
People have an amazing capacity to respond when invited to participate. The spark
of volunteer involvement is much more likely when there is a strategic conservation
plan that articulates the desired future outcomes of the restoration activity. In Arcata,
years of effort by many to assemble protected lands will be well served by providing
frequent opportunities to involve the public in stewardship efforts and creating a con-
stituency that will have the investment and passion to protect Arcata's environmental
assets. Participation in restoration projects helps bring the community members to-
gether and creates a social identity, sense of place, and local pride. However, not all
restoration activities are ideal for public participation, for example, the operation of
heavy equipment to remove roads. Moreover, many restoration projects in Arcata do
not use community participation as much as they could due to logistics, liability, and
lack of volunteer expertise in critical areas.
There are times when staff would consider it much easier to forge ahead on a res-
toration effort without involving community members. For example, the use of avail-
able conservation corps crews or in-house labor involves less logistical preparation,
and those crews can typically perform tree planting and other tasks more rapidly than
citizen volunteers. Nevertheless, the considerable long-term payback for providing cit-
izens with a legitimate way to become “vested” in the forest has outweighed the logis-
tical complications that sometimes accompany public involvement in restoration
projects.
Community-owned forests are relatively rare in the western United States, but re-
cently there has been increasing interest and effort to establish community forests.
This has allowed Arcata to reach out and become not only an example of success but
a participant in the larger community. Indeed, recent community-based forestry ef-
forts around the country have expanded Arcata's network of partners as well as our
