Reflections on environmental history with a human face: Experiences from a new national park

Environmental History, Oct 2003 by Diamant, Rolf

The Conservation Study Institute gives professionals in the National Park Service the opportunity to ponder lessons learned from their work, to maintain a dialogue with partners and potential collaborators, to stay abreast of the best thinking and practice in the larger world of conservation to enhance their professional and leadership skills. The institute adds value to Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, as the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation enriched the Olmsted National Historic Site. It serves as a magnet for conservation practitioners, scholars, students, international delegations, and emerging leaders throughout the National Park Service. Participants in institute programs take away powerful and lasting impressions from their encounters with Woodstock, the Billings Farm & Museum, and MBRNHP.

As the park was starting up, David Donath, Nora Mitchell, and I engaged in an ongoing series of conversations on the changing nature of stewardship and conservation with a number of professional acquaintances and colleagues in Vermont. These conversations, lightly but deftly facilitated by Middlebury College professor and writer John Elder, inspired park officials, in partnership with the Woodstock Foundation and the Conservation Study Institute, to undertake an initiative that would highlight and encourage the best thinking and practice in conservation stewardship. The final general management plan for MBRNHP recommended this collaborative effort to find and write about people and organizations involved in new and thoughtful approaches to conservation of special places in the United States and abroad. Particular attention would be given to work that is bringing conservation stewardship to new audiences or extending stewardship activities in new ways. The goals of the project included:

* Exploring current stewardship practice.

* Strengthening the interpretation of conservation at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.

* Establishing a network of conservation practitioners.

* Recommending programs and partnerships that recognize and encourage stewardship.

A report, "Landscape of Conservation Stewardship," was prepared, based on interviews with representatives of fifty organizations including nonprofit groups, public agencies, on-the-ground practitioners, organizations that assist the efforts of others, and private foundations that fund stewardship work. The interviews revealed a wealth of creative energy and thinking as great as at any time in the history of conservation. The report describes the three common threads of conservation stewardship:

* a sense of place that is complex and multi-faceted;

* community-based conservation that is comprehensive, collaborative, respectful, and self-sustaining; and

* a foundation of commitment and passion that works in concert with a sound scientific understanding to provide enduring inspiration.

The report also made a number of recommendations that would strongly influence the program direction of MBRNHP and the Conservation Study Institute. For example, the report recommended activities that would enhance leadership and build capacity, including training in partnership and collaborative skills. The Conservation Study Institute and partners have responded by convening national workshops to look at lessons learned from "Collaboration in Conservation."15 The report proposed professional and citizen exchanges on stewardship. MBRNHP and the Conservation Study Institute have hosted conservation study tours from all over the world and have partnered in "Gateway Community Planning" workshops bringing together teams of local leaders and public land managers from gateway communities-towns and cities that border public lands such as parks, forests, or wildlife refuges-around the United States. The report also proposed research and dialogue on conservation stewardship. MBRNHP and the Conservation Study Institute accordingly have undertaken a number of collaborative projects including participation in a recent national symposium on the future of conservation.16 The "Landscape of Conservation Stewardship" also recommended investing in educational programs for young people that could be shared with other national parks. In response, the NPS, Shelburne Farms, and other partners have founded a Research Learning Center for place-based education to develop and evaluate strategies for building long-term partnerships between schools and communities.