Red-billed Streamertail, the national bird of Jamaica, by Ted Lee EubanksThe Caribbean Birding Trail is a project of the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB) and its partner organizations. The Trail is being developed to help residents as well as travelers connect to the rich cultural and natural history of the Caribbean islands through birds. The Trail will aid visitors in enjoying the Caribbean birds, nature, history, and people along the entire expanse from Bermuda to Trinidad and Tobago.
Fermata is writing interpretive plans for the first two countries on the Trail, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Ted Eubanks, along with Lisa Sorenson and Holly Robertson of the SCSCB, spent nearly a month in the two countries this summer. Our visits focused on five Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) in these two countries: Sierra Bahoruco Oriental, Sierra Bahoruco, and Parque Nactional Valle Nuevo in the DR, and the Cockpit and Portland Bight regions of Jamaica. In October the team will travel to Grenada to complete this summer’s field work.
Monument Rocks by Ted Lee EubanksKansas is Oz. Kansas is flat. Kansas is boring. Not. Kansas’ 11 scenic byways lead visitors to what the state is, not what the state is said to be. These byways wend through the backroads of the Kansas experience. For the curious, for those not willing to limit their knowledge of the world to a television show or a cartoon, travel these byways and get a sense of the real Kansas. Fermata is currently developing interpretive plans for each of the 11 Kansas byways, and one for the state byways as a whole.
Sandhills, Nebraska by Ted Lee EubanksThe Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway stretches along Highway 2 from Grand Island to Alliance, Nebraska. The byway begins east of the 98th Meredian, at the edge of the humid, forested east. The byway ends west of the 100th Meredian, in the arid, treeless grasslands of the west. With each mile a different sentence in the great American story is inscribed. The Sandhills is an iconic American landscape, a land that fundamentally changed the way Americans view the country and themselves. Fermata is honored to be developing an interpretive strategy for this byway.
Fermata’s projects are often protracted affairs, epical rather than ephemeral. Our work often extends for a decade or more, with the completion of each phase catalyzing another. Frequently the people we began a project with move on to new opportunities or retirement before we finish. We are often the last one’s standing, the only people remaining who remember precisely how it all began.
One door opens as another closes, and one of ours, the Illinois River Road, has recently shut. Our work along the Illinois River began over seven years ago, in March 2003. Meetings with Michael Reuter, Doug Blodgett, and Jo Skoglund of the Illinois Nature Conservancy in Peoria then focused on their needs for a public use plan for a new property they were restoring – Emiquon. Once one of America’s most productive fisheries, Emiquon had been drained and farmed for corn for nearly a century. The Conservancy had acquired the property, and had plans to restore the backwater wetlands and marshes.
During the same trip I met Keith Arnold and Vicky Clark with the Peoria CVB, an organization whose support would lead us ultimately to a new national scenic byway. Vicky had been contemplating a scenic byway for the region, and I quickly became interested in the Illinois River Road (a moribund state byway that ran along the river). After we completed the public use plan for Emiquon, the Peoria CVB asked us to help organize a byway along the river. We began (wisely) at the local level, and eventually developed the Illinois River Country Nature Trail. Fermata developed guides for each of the trail loops, and an organizational structure that would serve us well in the next phases of the work.
Next we were asked to develop the Corridor Management Plan for a new federal byway, the Illinois River Road. In 2005 the byway received federal designation, one of two that we had been associated with to receive designation that year (the other being Wetlands and Wildlife in Kansas). The byway next received an enhancement grant from the National Scenic Byway Program, and we were asked to help develop many of the enhancements. After masterminding an interpretive plan, Fermata has now completed a byway guide, brochure, maps, and interpretive signs. The signs were delivered to Peoria in early August, bringing our work to a close.
Illinois River Cruiser
We thank Anaise Berry (Director), Keith Arnold (now at the Corpus Christi CVB) and Vicky Clark (at the EDCCI), the Economic Development Council of Central Illinois, the Heartland Partnership, and communities such as Pekin, Peoria, Canton, Princeton, Ottawa, Chillicothe, and Havana for their support and interest over the years. The byway board has been incredibly helpful and supportive over the years as well, and a few (Terry Svob and Michael Wiant, for example) have been involved since the beginning. Finally, I want to thank the Fermata associates both past and current who continue to generate sterling work after all of these years. Without people such as Brenda Adams-Weyant, Sandra Murphy, and Maja Smith involved, none of this would have happened. I am indeed blessed with such a creative, accomplished, and patient team.
For more information about this byway project, the executive summary that we prepared is available here.
The next few weeks are dominated by travel. There is nothing like spring to entice one outside. This week I am in Scott County, assessing sites for a heritage tourism analysis. We are working with Carolyn Brackett, a Senior Program Associate with the Heritage Tourism Program, National Trust for Historic Preservation. After returning to Texas on Thursday I will be in Galveston, trying to finish dismantling the Houston office.
On Sunday I fly to Pittsburgh, and then spend next week in Pennsylvania. I am speaking at Pennsylvania Environmental Council’s Marcellus Shale conference Monday. I then travel to Harrisburg on Tuesday to attend the Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation’s annual awards dinner that night. PA DCNR parks recently won the gold medal for being the best state park system in the nation, and that night we will all celebrate their success.
I will continue on to Philadelphia the following morning, and I will work the remainder of the week in Fairmount Park. The last time I visited Philadelphia we were hampered by the remainder of a blizzard, and it will be wonderful to see the park facilities exposed.
Finally I will fly to Chicago on Sundayt, and then drive to Valparaiso (Indiana) for a couple of days work on Indiana Beyond the Beach. We are about to unveil a number of new products regarding the BTB Discovery Trail, so stay tuned. I will blog from the road as I travel these next weeks.
