LandCare Is My Teacher
October 1,2007 to National Workshop on Land Care
Skelton Conference Center, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
Jerry A. Moles
Consulting Director of Land Stewardship
Welcome to the New River Valley of Virginia. It’s our pleasure and honor to have you in
our midst. For me personally, for the
New River Land Trust that supports the effort we now call LandCare, for the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation that funded the effort for two years, and
for the people of Grayson LandCare who are teaching us what LandCare means on
the land in a rural community, I offer a warm "hello."
For more than two years, people have joined to assist in
stabilizing our soils, keeping our water clean, and seeing to it that the
people who manage our lands well receive sufficient benefit to keep them at
their tasks. Throughout this room, there
are partners who have thought and worked with us in improving our economic and
environmental circumstances. The history
is available here at the workshop.
Land-use conversion threatens each and everyone of us as
environmental services are further diminished. Far fewer photosynthetic cells are alive at this moment than were alive
in 1707. More solar energy is reflected
back into space than in the past. We are
losing photosynthetic efficiency. In our
managing, we have reduced the complexity, the species compositions, of Planet
Earth. Certainly there are planetary
scale changes whether we wish to call them climate change or something else.
We must become increasingly energy independent. We need to reduce the movement of food and
fiber from place to place. We must keep
our waters clean.
LandCare is a
critical and timely contribution to sustainably caring for the Earth. Speaking holistically to water and energy and
soils, and fish and wildlife, and the health of communities; LandCare says that
each of us is responsible. Together, we
must do our share. We must not fail.
Life as we know it is in the balance! Literally!
We know enough to start the quest. Grayson LandCare is going beyond conservation
and agricultural easements. We’re
initiating new ways of thinking and, perhaps, re-enabling old ways of
being. We are in search of people
willing to stand tall for improved economic, community, and environmental/health
benefits.
We have done our home-work as a land trust. We have established a board and standing
committees of landowners, farmers, resource managers, academics, natural
resource professionals, attorneys, developers, and financial managers. Given the prices currently paid for open land
in our valley, the returns to agriculture and forestry are miniscule or
negative. In 2002, over 50 percent of
Virginia’s farmers operated at a net loss. Seeing critical environmental and cultural values being lost, we are
proactive in the name of LandCare.
LandCare is a social
and cultural movement. We are a
restless people, moving frequently in search of betterment. Our food often comes from
we-don’t-know-where. We hear conflicting
reports and statements about almost every quality of our lives. We hear daily that our lives are too little
or too much, not complete without, we’d be more attractive if, etc. Consumer/entertainment media bombard us with
sophisticated but shortsighted messages. When we allow ourselves to be herded, we can lose touch with the
essential elements from which life grows.
Generations occupationally, intellectually, and soulfully
removed from direct engagement with Nature are losing consciousness of their
links to natural resources and their awareness of the "services" Nature
performs. Untended, those endowments
become possible prey to forces unknown. We can let ourselves become anxious thinking "what if" only now and
again, or we can figure out how each of us can contribute personally by getting
to know our habitats, seeing to it that our soils remain and grow and our
waters run pure and clean.
We haven’t lost the capacity to invest in ourselves, in our
landscapes, and in the health of present and future generations. We are smart enough and sufficiently
attentive to find ways to return enough to farmers and foresters for them forgo
lucrative deals to divide the homesteads or tracts into multiple parcels.
Against this backdrop, along comes LandCare saying that if
people work together, we will have greater financial security, improved
community services and quality of life, and stable and productive landscapes
providing high quality environmental services.
With proper care, with investment in our current assets, and
with proper marketing, we can take care of ourselves, here across these
ridge-tops and down in the valleys below.
But what is LandCare,
really? LandCare is a
transformation. LandCare is you. As we in a specific community decide we will
pursue the triple bottom line of LandCare, we become LandCare. When you decide to join a LandCare group, you
become LandCare, you are LandCare. When
we sit as the livestock committee of Grayson LandCare starting a value added
beef industry, we are LandCare. When we
sit as the water committee and listen to presentations by the Department of
Conservation and Recreation and when we collaborate with the Virginia Water
Center at Virginia Tech to acquire the information needed to empower ourselves
in protecting the river and its tributaries, we are LandCare. When we stand on Jim and Marguerite Cox’s
farm as their forest management plan is completed and they await a harvesting
crew from the Blue Ridge Forest Cooperative, we are LandCare.
You in the audience this afternoon are LandCare. We’ve assembled here to advance LandCare, to
stabilize and protect our irreplaceable natural resources. Our greatest challenge is figuring out how to
discover the tasks that benefit LandCare given our various talents, skills, and
positions in life. How do we make
LandCare happen on the Land, in our food baskets, and in the water we drink.
Being the anthropologist that I am, I must return to the
notion of social and cultural movements. In the anthropological literature, a social and cultural movement occurs
when there is a new statement of ethos[1] or ethic. A new synthesis or vision
emerges that gives direction as people define themselves as part of the
movement by joining in and lending a hand. I’m saying LandCare is a new synthesis, understandable to everyone at
first blush, but far more subtle and complex in its establishment. It’s a living and growing tradition.
Let’s turn to the
establishment of LandCare collaboratively by the New River Land Trust,
people in Grayson County, Virginia Tech, USDA NRCS, New River Soil & Water
District, New River Highland RC&D Council, Virginia Farm Bureau, Virginia
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, etc. The list is, of course, longer and ever
growing. There is much in the world that
requires the attention of the dominant species, the Homo sapiens. Our
institutional arrangements are not addressing some of our most dire needs. In creating new institutional arrangements,
collaborative efforts are required to establish new bonds among people
dedicated to the goals that LandCare represents.
In the example of Grayson LandCare, many people in many
organizations plus many who only represented themselves as citizens have come
together to catalyze a cooperative movement. There are new organizations, the New River Land Trust, Blue Ridge Forest
Cooperative, Grayson LandCare, and Grayson Natural Foods, LLC, but these
emergent ventures have been dependent upon a host of partners. A new "web" of collaboration has emerged
within the upper reaches of the New River Drainage in the headwaters of the
Kanawha Drainage, the Ohio Drainage, and the Mississippi Drainage. This interest in collaboration has also
spread into the upper reaches of the Roanoke and the James Drainages. LandCare is the coalitions of people
cooperating in pursuit of the triple bottom-line.
Phil Hanes reminds us that these new collaborative efforts
can best be described as "ad hoc-racies," people organizing themselves to do
jobs that need to be done.
Before we step forward with a concrete example involving the
emergence of Grayson LandCare, let me share with you a story that offers a
"sense" of LandCare and its revelatory nature, the story of Stone Soup.
The Stone Soup
Assumption – The answers are here, we need only find them.
The story appears in several European languages and set in a
number of countries with different circumstances and characters. The theme, however, is constant. A stranger appears in a village during a time
of civil strife and near famine. To the
amazement of the local people, the stranger is carrying a large stone and
little else. When asked why carry such a
large stone on his journey, the visitor responded, "this is a soup stone,
whenever I need soup, I put the stone in a pot with water, heat the pot, and
make soup."
The villagers weren’t buying the story, "you’re telling us
that you make soup with a stone?"
The stranger assured the audience that indeed soup was made
with a stone and a villager challenged the visitor to make good his words by
bringing a large pot, filling it with water, and building a fire
underneath. The stranger dropped the
stone in the pot.
As the water commenced to boil, the stranger took a spoon
and tasted the soup. When asked how it
tasted, the stranger responded, "not bad, not bad, but could be better with a
little salt and pepper."
A person standing nearby said "I have salt and pepper,"
rushed out, and returned with the spice and mineral, and the "soup" continued
to simmer.
Again the stranger sampled the soup and again was questioned
as to its taste. The stranger responded,
"better, better, but could be even better still with some potatoes." Another person rushed off and returned with
potatoes.
You can see how the story goes and ultimately there was a
large pot of boiling soup that fed the entire village. The people could see the magic, the stone had
produced soup! At the same time, the
soup has been produced through their cooperation.
The assumption with LandCare is that the solutions to our
natural resource problems are within our means, that answers can be found among
ourselves. With initiative (the stone)
and through cooperation we can experience results beneficial to ourselves. LandCare as soup stone? You betcha!
A new value added
beef industry in the upper New River Valley. I wish to share with you a story that has many
branches. For this presentation, I’ll
follow but a single path from the originating seed out to one of many limbs
that now exist as a consequence of the seed being planted.
Seed planters, Phil and Charlotte Hanes, in an effort to
protect the land along New River and in Grayson County keeping it open for
agriculture and forests, appealed to the Conservation Fund and the New River
Land Trust to engage with them in a novel experiment. Phil and Charlotte were searching for new
approaches to land management that would provide adequate returns to landowners
and offer attractive opportunities to subsequent generations. Mickki Sager of
the Conservation Fund wrote a proposal to the National Fish & Wildlife
Foundation to increase farmer income while improving resource stewardship
through a grassroots approach. The
proposal was funded and off I went to Grayson County where the Hanes farm is
located and where a number of people are interested in protecting their lands
through conservation easements.
Existing studies demonstrated that through rotational
grazing and proper water management, productivity in beef cattle can be
increased by 70 percent in Grayson County. From working with Britt Boucher of Foresters, Inc., and Harry Groot of
Next Generation Wood, Inc., I knew that increased productivity in forestry of
more than 40 percent was largely dependent on investments in improved
management.
I knew that in some places, invasive species had seized from
ten to forty percent of the open land.
I knew of the support for LandCare by Jim Johnson, Associate
Dean of Natural Resources at Tech; Harold Burkhart and David Robertson of the
Tech Department of Forestry; Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences, Sharron Quisenberry; Jeff Waldron, director of the Tech Conservation
Management Institute; Tom Greene of the USDA NRCS; Mary Lily Nuckolls,
community leader in Grayson County; Marla Phillips, chair of the Grayson County
Planning Commission; Don Philen, farmer, member of the board of the New River
Land Trust, and soil scientist; Alvin Cox, farmer and former commissioner of
revenues for Grayson County, etc.
At the invitation of Jim Johnson, a delegation from Grayson
County came to Blacksburg to discuss their needs with Tech faculty and
staff. Harold Burkhart, chair of the
Tech Department of Forestry, responded that Tech could help these people
because the folks from Grayson knew what they wanted. Acting on his appreciation of the local
effort, Professor Burkhart assigned Professor David Robertson to work with us.
For illustration we are limiting our consideration this day
to the livestock committee. It’s important to recognize, however, that the
meetings with the faculty and staff are still paying dividends in many other areas
as increasing numbers of people become involved.
Back to livestock. Dean Quisenberry of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences invited
Grayson LandCare for dinner in the College’s dining room in the Livestock
Pavilion. Grayson LandCare shared its
dreams of developing a value added livestock industry among other things. Immediately after the meeting, Dean
Quisenberry requested Dick Daugherty of the Virginia Tech Business Technology
Center to work with Grayson LandCare in creating a proposal to study the
feasibility of an abattoir dedicated to local, value added livestock. The proposal was written and USDA awarded us
$23,000. Over the past eight months, we
have sharpened our focus on what must be done to start a value added beef
industry, gathering the necessary information to make the dream come true,
organizing farmers who are now marketing directly to consumers and restaurants,
and attracting the attention of farmers in a seven county area. Grayson Natural Foods, LLC is now a
reality. No hormones, no antibiotics,
and the ground beef is 92 percent lean.
In a chance meeting with then Governor-elect Tim Kaine, I
took the opportunity to tell him about LandCare. He asked that I call him once he was in
office. The call was made and Virginia
Secretary of Agriculture, Robert Bloxom returned the call setting up a meeting
in Lexington during the Environment Virginia Conference. One of his deputies, Bill Scruggs, also
participated in the meeting with the secretary. Subsequently when contacted concerning the feasibility study for the
abattoir, he supported the proposal and engaged Spencer Neale, deputy director
of the Virginia Farm Bureau. Neale came
to SW Virginia to visit the Hanes farm and attended Congressman Boucher
conference on value added beef. Also
attending the meeting was Mike Lorentz of Lorentz Meats in Minnesota who works
with farmers to improve their incomes through novel marketing techniques.[2] Since that time, Mr. Neale and Charlotte
Hanes of Grayson LandCare have made an information gathering trip to Minnesota
to talk to farmers cooperating with Lorentz Meats and visit with a distributor
of organic beef and bison, and managers of consumer cooperatives buying beef
for their members.
Both Mr. Scruggs of the Virginia Department of Food &
Consumer Services and Mr. Neale of the Virginia Farm Bureau have been active in
the feasibility study for a new beef industry in conjunction with Grayson
LandCare. Other partners include the
Virginia Tech Business Technology Center, Conservation Management Institute,
and Cooperative Extension, and USDA NRCS staff, Carroll-Grayson Cattle
Producers Association, New River Soil & Water District and the New Rive
Highlands RC&D Council.
At the invitation of the New River Highlands RC&D
Council, Mike Lorentz returned to conduct a day-long seminar for farmers on new
marketing alternatives for meats. The
seminar was videoed and is now available for people interested in options in
livestock management.
Phil and Charlotte Hanes invited Congressman Boucher to
dinner to discuss (among other things) the possibility of a value added beef
industry. Over a dinner of grass-fed
beef, the case was made for improving incomes and better environmental
management. The following year,
Congressman Boucher called together a conference on a Value-Added Livestock
Industry for SW Virginia. Stephen Smith,
president of Food City, a regional supermarket chain attended and presented an
offer to purchase locally produced ground beef.
Following discussions with the New River Land Trust,
Professor Denise Mainville of the Tech Department of Agricultural and Applied
Economics, wrote a proposal to study the marketing of pasture raised beef. Having received funding from USDA, the study
is now in the second year.
This momentum created confidence in local farmers to take
new bold steps in managing the harvesting, processing, marketing, and
distribution of their animals. All of
the activities just mentioned created realistic expectations that adequate help
would be forthcoming. Discussions about
new marketing schemes and an abattoir progressed. Through many meetings, the livestock
committee discovered that local cooperative actions would serve them better
than their current participation in the commodities market. The ultimate test of an idea is to make it
happen on the ground in three dimensional space and Grayson Natural is
underway.
That people have come together so quickly and with such
energy says to me that people recognize opportunities. Not a small part of the sense of opportunity
is the realization that people working together for common purpose have
remarkable power. A New River Cattle
Producers Association has recently emerged and there are now invitations to
speak on LandCare at three county Farm Bureau meetings.
The dynamics of social and cultural change, introducing LandCare into
SW Virginia. I now wish to reflect
on what has happened given the ongoing activities of a value added livestock
industry plus a few other illustrative examples. A useful framework for this reflective glance
is one developed by Daniel, Carl, and Jesse Taylor, grandfather, son, and
grandson (www.future.org) who have invested three generations in organizing and delivering services to
rural people around the world. The
Taylors focus on social energy, people directing attention to and pursuing
common goals. The challenge is how to
direct the attention and motivate people to act in their own behalves. How this is done is the mystery that the
Taylors sought to unravel. They write:
"Belief in community capacity is
essential. Many development
professionals pay lip service to the notion of community, but their actions
reveal an unwillingness to relinquish control. Energy from people comes forth when partners give the social space for
it to grow."
The Taylors detected four essential elements in successful
change efforts.
- Building from success. Success provides the motivation for
participation. When Dean Jim
Johnson leading a delegation from Virginia Tech stood in the Baldwin
Auditorium in the 1908 Court House in Grayson County and stated that his
greatest fear for the university was that it would become irrelevant to
the communities that surround it, people paid attention. When Dean Quisenberry invited Grayson
LandCare to dinner, people noticed. Participants were empowered to explore further. Success securing the funding for the
feasibility study involved an ever broadening community including the
Virginia Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, the Virginia
Farm Bureau, Virginia Tech Business Technology Center, etc., etc., with
Grayson LandCare, Carroll-Grayson Cattle Producers Association, New River
Highlands RC&D Council, etc. We
have emerged as a social force. A
new livestock industry is being created. Meat is being sold. The Blue
Ridge Forest Cooperative is cutting trees and selling specialty wood
products. Success empowers people
to take the next step, and then the next. The facilitator projects back to the people their own successes and
assist them in interpreting those successes in terms of next steps.
- There must be a three-way partnership
among the "bottoms-ups," "tops-downs," and "outside-ins." The bottoms-ups,
under certain circumstances, would be called the clients or those for whom
a program is planned. The
bottoms-ups know their circumstances in far greater detail than do the
tops-downs or outside-ins. They
will see many more of the latent opportunities. Further, with the cooperation of the
bottoms-ups, assistance can be better targeted and implemented by the
intended beneficiaries thus reducing costs. Finally, the bottoms-ups will surprise
themselves with their capabilities once organized. The tops-downs are the representatives of private enterprise and government. They help direct, support, assist,
regulate, sell, buy, advertise, etc. So long as the bottom-ups are active and effective partners, the
tops-downs can enable solutions that otherwise might be out of reach. Flexibility of tops-downs is often
limited by jurisdictional limits, lack of inter-agency agreements, policy
and inadequate funding. Finding new
avenues of cooperation exist in the examples above as Grayson LandCare
joined with so many others in search of a new livestock industry. The outside-ins are groups with specific goals such as the New River Land Trust, the
National Committee for the New River, etc., that have no power or
authority but rather bring new information and skills in organizing. They are dedicated to empowering local
people to pursue the goals of the outside-ins. Successful outside-ins demonstrate the
benefits of their service and recommendations. They assist in creating the foundations
upon which future successes are built. The New River Land Trust can more easily influence landowners not
to sell out if their incomes from land stewardship can be markedly
improved. There are further
advantages to a three-way partnership. They can provide observers of any two-way deals. If there is no collusion or
insensitivity to another partner in secretive two-way deals, then
decisions can be made based upon mutual benefits.
- Decisions are based upon evidence. The implementation of the feasibility
study, the survey of cattle producers, the inviting of guest speakers to
address questions raised by Grayson LandCare, the request to the Virginia
Tech Department of Forestry for a white paper on taxation alternatives in
rural counties, the request for information on conservation easements,
presentations made to county supervisors and planning commissions,
discussion groups, etc., all provide grist for the mill in sorting through
what information can be trusted and what seems based upon less than
adequate foundations. In the
example of Grayson Natural, some information can only be gained through
the selling of meat.
- Social change efforts have the
greatest impact when they seek to change behavior. Behavior change is different
conceptually from measurable results in many cases. Behavior change involves changing the
information shared, the energy (human, fossil, solar, electrical)
utilized, the transfers of capital (capacity to command goods and
services), and impacts upon biotic life. In the livestock example, there are changes in behavior, in Grayson
LandCare being involved with the New River Land Trust, Virginia Tech,
state and federal agencies, the ongoing meetings and field days, the
marketing of beef directly to consumers, etc. Changes in behavior, if proven
beneficial, will continue because, as noted earlier, success builds upon
success. Then, instead of a single
measurable result, there will be a string of measurable results. Even when the desired measurable result
is not produced, if a group remains actively engaged in resolving
community issues, future results can be expected. For LandCare to be successful, it must
be able to "make place" for doing things differently.
The great challenge
as we go forward is finding the resources to implement LandCare on the ground
in every drainage basin. The demand
for the spread of LandCare is evident as increasing numbers of farmers are
interested in more information and discovering ways they can cooperate. Voluntary groups and others active in
protecting and the New River Valley and benefiting its people see LandCare as a
key element in bringing self-sufficiency and sustainability to a major tributary
in the headwaters of the Mississippi Drainage.
We have a running start, we have an interested and active
community. Now with the Conservation
Fund and Virginia Department of Forestry Green Infrastructure program being
implemented by the four county New River Planning Commission, we have a
watershed scale scope. Radford
University held the first New River Symposium in several years bringing us up
to date on research and natural resource activities in the Basin. The National Committee on New River held
active cleanups of the river from the headwaters in North Carolina through
Virginia to the West Virginia border at Glen Lynn. New River Roundtable is active in building
coalitions to address problems in the watershed. Members of the Skyline and New River Soil
& Water Districts are active in LandCare. New River Community Partners is exploring ways to improve economic
benefit in the three states of the New River Basin. We have a river navigator, Ben Borda of the
US Army Corps of Engineers. By the end
of the year, the New River Land Trust will have assisted landowners in placing
more than 20,000 acres under easement. We are a cast of thousands ready to coordinate our activities for
greater impact and benefits to ourselves.
Immediate needs. LandCare can expand rapidly as increasing
numbers of successes become apparent among the people and in the
watersheds. The number of successes is
dependent upon our capacities to meaningfully involve communities in making the
world a better place.
- Fieldwork on the ground creating
whole-farm plans and spelling out management alternatives, their initial
costs, and return to investments. Britt Boucher, natural resource economist of Foresters, Inc. and
supported by the New River Community Partners has develop spreadsheets
that link photosynthetic efficiency to farmer incomes both from the
practice of agriculture and of forestry. We do have a staff in Virginia Tech Extension who are amazing
people and accomplish the miraculous daily but they are stretched thin
with ever-growing responsibilities. Funding scarcity has influenced a number of agencies and former
field people tell me that administrative responsibilities are taking more
of their time than ever before. In
some cases, landowners must wait six months or more before a farm visit
can be expected. If we could
saturate the area with experienced people in creating farm plans, if we
could inventory the forests and develop strategies to meet family needs,
there would be hundreds of people owning thousands of acres interested in
participating. Such an effort would
place in the hands of landowners, a set of rational expectations about
what is possible with their land.
- Specialists in emergent businesses. To get a new venture off the ground is a
tremendous challenge and often the requirements for organization are far
beyond the capacity of most rural communities. For example, it took a more than
$100,000 investment by the Southern States Cooperative Foundation to pay
for the legal and accounting work required to establish a
cooperative. Some of us are even
certified by the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell stock for
goodness sakes. We need well
considered business plans. As
LandCare emerges, the need for other specialists will emerge. As the questions are posed out in the
fields and forests and among our current natural resource stewards, we can
be further specific in our requests.
- Investment and inventory capital. A revolving loan fund that could respond
to the "well considered business plans" would be a godsend. To invest in a watershed fund dedicated
to asset-based development, i.e., businesses designed to take best
advantage of current human and natural resources, would be a dream
realized. For centuries wealth has
flowed from rural to urban areas. Now is the time for reinvestment back in
the lands and waters that keep those downstream alive. News of the importance of local foods,
of the slow food movement, of the growth in the organic food market, of
the growth in the demand for pasture raised animals, etc., tells us that
the future will reward us kindly if the rural landscapes and economies can
be stabilized in ways beneficial to local people regionally.
- Support for facilitation. Perhaps the most difficult to sell to
funders is the role of facilitators, the "outside-ins" if we use previous
language. Facilitation assists in
establishing communication among the various partners and doing the things
that no one else is able to do to get the ball rolling. The effort is all about communication,
evolving structures, evaluating results, and making appropriate and timely
adjustments.
We market our successes. In fact, I’ve been marketing our successes for some time this afternoon,
if you haven’t already noticed. I’m now
better prepared to speak at some length about what is required.
While we enjoy office space in Grayson County, there is no
office support. We need time for
planning meetings, sharing information, and to provide feedback to those
involved in LandCare requires increasing attention to logistics. Keeping up
with evolving events and providing the amount of necessary information is
beyond the capacity of one person to manage. Improving the linkage between program activities and the website and the
local press is important. Spending more time
in face-to-face meetings is essential to build bonds of trust upon which to
build lasting partnerships. As
previously noted, successful organizations emerge based upon sound
evidence. Office support would
pay remarkable dividends.
We intend to make history. If others are to benefit, we require support to put together the records
of accomplishments and momentary frustrations. Thanks to the work of Star City
Studios of Roanoke, 125 hours of professionally recorded video is available
documenting the LandCare experience. Video recording began with early meetings among the Hanes, the New River
Land Trust, Grayson LandCare, Virginia Tech, Congressman Boucher’s Office,
etc. It included major presentations
made in the name of LandCare. Visitors
from Washington, Atlanta, Arizona, and Sri Lanka are recorded in our
gallery. Having people see themselves
acting in a positive role on video is a powerful force. When neighbors see the same video, they sense
that something is underway in their community. Star City Studio also managed the Grayson LandCare website until the
demands of the studio limited available time. Kate Irwin of Fine Lettering
& Design in Cox’s Chapel will now manage the website. We work closely with the LandCare Center at
Virginia Tech developing better ways to share information relevant both to
local communities and academic advancement. All parties are willing. It’s
just a matter of establishing the discourse. Bit by bit, we’re enjoying success and building ever stronger bonds
through successful partnerships.
Invest in local efforts to create the successes that other
people will follow.
I’d like to believe in magic. At the 20th year celebration of
LandCare in Australia last October, Joan Kirner, former premier (governor) of
the Commonwealth of Victoria recalled an eureka moment when she realized that
the people working at the ground level were correct when they said, "give us
the money, we can solve the problems, we know what to do." Over the years, several billions of dollars
have been invested by the state and federal governments in the Australian
LandCare movement. Corporations have
also been major investors. The results
are telling, the productive capacities of the landscapes of Australia are now
better protected as are watercourses and coastal areas. I’d like to see similar investments in our
natural resources here in the USA. I
don’t see it happening immediately, but given the responses of our local
representative in Congress and the Governor’s Office, in USDA Washington, Virginia
Tech, Grayson County and the New River Valley, it could very well happen faster
than we can imagine. That would be
magic.
I do believe in stone soup, the answers are within our
grasp, we need only find them. Being
LandCare teaches me that this is so.
[1] e·thos n the fundamental and
distinctive character of a group, social context, or period of time, typically
expressed in attitudes, habits, and beliefs. Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
[2] The abattoir at Lorentz Meats is featured as a model in the popular book by Michael
Pollan entitled Omnivore’s Dilemma. |
