Culture of Conservation – Keep It Simple, Not Simplistic

Conservation, Culture of Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, , , , , , , ,

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler—Albert Einstein

The third principle of the Culture of Conservation is to keep the message simple. Effective marketing is little more than simple messages and images repeated endlessly. Remember the earlier quote that 93% of American children can recognize McDonalds by the golden arches? I wonder what the percentage is now for the Japanese?

McDonalds sponsoring the Osaka sumo basho

Simple messages and images rise above the cacophony that is modern life. Simplicity and volume (both amplitude and amount) help messages battle through the noise. Doubt this? According to the Associated Press, BP’s been spending more than $5 million a week on advertising since the blowout. Remember BPs original simple message? Beyond Petroleum.

Freeman Tilden inspired what we now know as the interpretation profession. Tilden stressed the need for interpreters (guides, museum staff, National Park Service employees and the like) to know their audiences. My impression is that most conservation groups consider their members to be the audience. No wonder the messages are so obtuse, and geared toward fund raising.

Freeman Tilden
Our professional organization for interpretation is the National Association for Interpretation (NAI). I am a NAI supporter, and I am working to have myself certified by them in every way possible (Freeman didn’t write about interpretation until the age of 62). But in recent years Jon Kohl, Sam Ham, and I have been thinking about conservation interpretation, and the need to train staff that can communicate and interpret conservation, not just nature, history, or culture. We have completed organizing the training program, and once I finish with my current NAI certification projects I want to turn my attention to this component of our work.

Why? Because I believe that conservation as a movement is fundamentally inept when it comes to devising ways in which people can relate to our work (another of Tilden’s principals).

Rather than continue to offer Tilden’s principles in a piecemeal fashion, here are the six principles from Interpreting Our Heritage:

1. Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile.

2. Information, as such, is not interpretation. Interpretation is revelation based upon information. But they are entirely different things. However, all interpretation include information.

3. Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts, whether the materials presented are scientific, historical, or architectural. Any art is to some degree teachable.

4. The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction but provocation.

5. Interpretation should aid to present a whole rather than a part and must address itself to the whole man rather than any phase.

6. Interpretation addressed to children should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults but should follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best it will require a separate program.

NAI offers a number of certification programs, and I endorse them all. Interestingly, most conservation groups do not have certified interpretive staff, a mistake in my opinion. But I also believe that there is a need for us in the profession to develop a certification program in conservation interpretation, a program that does not exist currently. For those interested in where we have taken this idea, there is information here on the Fermata blog.

The key to successful simplification, however, is (as Einstein said) to keep things simple but not too simple. In conservation we deal with complex issues like global warming, oil spills, biodiversity, and extinction. These topics do not lend themselves to simplicity. Yet, as Tilden stated, our presentations, programs, and messages must address the desires, experiences, and limitations of our audiences. In this way I agree with Tilden that interpretation is an art, one practiced well by a few. Read Enos Mills, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, and Peter Matthiessen to get a sense of the interpretive art as it relates to conservation.

Enos Mills
This helps us understand the recent debate here about the Ted Williams’ article in Audubon, and Drew Wheelan’s reports for the American Birding Assocation. Williams is a journalist, a master craftsman. His work can be judged by its lucidness and accuracy. Unfortunately, as journalism Williams’ article failed miserably. Drew did not pretend to be a journalist; instead, he functioned as an observer. Drew placed himself in situations in the Gulf that allowed us to experience the blowout and its impacts through his eyes. Yes, Drew is passionate about his work, an attribute that contributes to effective interpretation. Williams debated facts and completely missed the story. Drew didn’t sweat every fact and captured the story in all of its horror, devastation, and pathos.

The National Park Service (NPS) has devised an equation to show the key components that go into the interpretive experience – (Kr + Ka) X AT = IO. Remember, however, that this is metaphor, not math. The equation states that a knowledge of the resource (Kr) plus a knowledge of the audience (Ka), multiplied by well-grounded interpretive techniques (AT), will create an interpretive opportunity (IO). The equation is often displayed as a teeter-totter, where an overemphasis on one factor, such as knowledge of the resource, can outweigh and overwhelm the audience and any interpretive technique. In my experience this is the chief failing of conservation groups. Yes, they can all impress with a knowledge of the resources, but most have no concept of how to communicate that knowledge or a conservation imperative to the audience.

Let’s recap. I have now presented three of the Culture of Conservation principles:

1. Take it to the street
2. Make space for place
3. Keep it simple, not simplistic

Keep tuned for the next principle – Aim straight for the heart.

Ted Eubanks
15 Sep 2010

The Culture of Conservation – Space For Place (2)

Conservation, Culture of Conservation, Recreation, ,

Part 1 of Space For Place ended with we need the tools to stitch these places into seamless spaces, and the media necessary to present these spaces to America. First, let’s stitch. Places often exist independently, islands within an ocean of other places. An Audubon place, such as Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, shares little with the other Audubon places such as the Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary, Mill Grove, or Rowe Sanctuary other than the name. The name certainly has space, but the places themselves are effectively isolated.

There is much to be gained from knitting discrete, disparate places into a seamless fabric. To hack a cliche from Aristotle, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. For example, the National Park Service (NPS) manages around 400 “units.” Certainly the NPS as an entity occupies significant American space, particularly in those places that it manages that are so much a part of the American identity. Yet most Americans, I suspect, could not tell you the difference between a national forest, a national wildlife refuge, a ACOE recreation area, or lands owned by the BLM or the Bureau of Reclamation. All of these are public land stewards, and the land is managed for the American people. Yet these forests and refuges occupy a much smaller space in the American psyche than the national parks.

Technology, however, can begin to help us stitch places into spaces. One method that I use is to organize “trails” out of like places. By “trail” I do not mean only paths through forests, such as the Allegheny Trail. In my work a trail is a way of connecting important places so that they portray an overarching space.

Let me offer an example. Here is the Beyond the Beach Discovery Trail that we are developing in Indiana. Click on “Map” and you will see the 54 places that have been interlaced to create a space called the Beyond the Beach Discovery Trail. My company, Fermata, has now developed signage, guides, a blog, a website, and a SmartTrail (more on that later) to help solidify the space. Of course each place is capable of standing on its own. But how much more powerful is the cementing of these places into a single, consolidating space?

Here is another example from our work – the Wetlands and Wildlife Scenic Byway in Kansas. In the byway we have again linked numerous places into a single space. These places include Quivira NWR, Cheyenne Bottoms, several communities, and a number of additional parks and historical sites. To solidify the space we developed a website, audio guide, interpretive signs, wayfinding signs, a printed guide, a printed rack piece, and an interpretive plan that provide a roadmap for the entire consolidation. Quivira NWR is a place (which actually can be subdivided into additional places), while the Wetlands and Wildlife Scenic Byway is a space. The Smithsonian is a space, and the individual buildings and facilities are places.

These projects, though, are long, drawn-out affairs. In both cases we and the clients invested years. We need a simpler, more expedient way of making spaces.

Enter technology. Only in the past year or so has geolocation become a tool for the masses. I know; GPS units have been around for some time. But the Iphone 3G and the Android are relatively new, and smartphone geolocation is the way to the masses. According to Pew,

Some 35% of U.S. adults have software applications or “apps” on their phones, yet only 24% of adults use those apps. Many adults who have apps on their phones, particularly older adults, do not use them, and 11% of cell owners are not sure if their phone is equipped with apps. Among cell phone owners, 29% have downloaded apps to their phone and 13% have paid to download apps.

Yes, we are early in the evolution and adoption of the smartphone technologies. But consider this. According to Dr. Allan Kanner from Berkeley,

Recent studies have also shown that by the time they are 36 months old, American children recognize an average of 100 brand logos.

How many birds can children name that are seen in their yards? How many parks other than playgrounds have children visited by the time that they are in kindergarten? How can we effectively lead people from a psychological space to a physical place? When compared to American marketing, we do not exist. We need every tool that we can find, and to be content with marginal gains. We are starting at zero.

For the past couple of years I have been watching an Austin company as they have been developing IPhone and Android technologies for tours and trails. They are typical Austin computer geeks, and not in the business of nature or historical interpretation. But they have developed a fantastically simple and effective application, and I recently entered into an agreement with them to begin offering it through Great American Trails. Given the number of places we have inventoried in the U.S. (thousands), we have a backlog that can be brought to the public rather quickly. But I am also convinced that we need to be able to attract others to organize their places into spaces as well. In other words, I want to be able to offer an application that people can use to make spaces from places. We are still in the early stages of this project, but I am excited about the potential.

But how to we educate, promote, and deliver these new spaces to the people? We should (in fact, must) begin with the web. Web 2.0, and in particular the newest blog platforms such as WordPress 3.0, are the web-based technologies that will allow us to engage the public in a dynamic, vital way. The third step in my culture of conservation strategy is to keep the messages simple, and this is precisely what I envision in this web offering. I have secured space4place.org as well as spaceforplace.org, and I suspect that you will be seeing something about this shortly as well.

Finally, I have been working with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council in Pittsburgh, and we will roll out these two programs first there. I am speaking at the Western Pennsylvania Trail Symposium October 26 near Pittsburgh on SmartTrails. I will actually conduct a workshop where we will develop a SmartTrail on the fly. This, to me, is a key component in any space for place strategy. We must be able to organize and connect places in real time. The forces that work against place are not constrained by time or money, and we have no choice but to have ways of responding in kind.

My next installment will be a discussion of keeping messages simple. Why? Think about this – the average American reading level is between the 8th and 9th grade.

Here is a paragraph from the National Audubon Society website about global warming:

All organisms depend on their habitats for food, water, shelter, and opportunities to breed and raise young. Climate changes can affect organisms and their habitats in a myriad of ways. In fact, global warming impacts all life on earth, from individual organisms to populations, species, communities, and ecosystems. It can alter behaviors, population sizes, species distributions, plant and animal communities, and ecosystem functions and stability. How strongly different species will be affected varies, depending on differences in their ecology and life history. Species with small population sizes, restricted ranges, and limited ability to move to different habitat will be most at risk. Similarly, different habitats and ecosystems will be impacted differently, with those in coastal, high-latitude, and high-altitude regions most vulnerable.

Now here is a headline from the blog I Hate The Media:

Global warming causes more snow. Except when it causes less snow. And that’s a scientific fact.

Here is your homework. Which of these would connect better with average Americans like your grandmother or your neighbor? More importantly, if I asked people at a local mall about these two statements which do you think they would grasp more quickly?

There will be a test.

Ted Eubanks
14 Sep 2010

The Culture of Conservation – Space for Place

Conservation, Culture of Conservation, Opinion, Politics, Recreation, , , , , , , , ,

A place for everything, everything in its place.

Benjamin Franklin

Wissahickon Creek, Philadelphia

Everything in its place. In Franklin’s case, the place is Philadelphia. For the past year I have been helping Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, the nation’s first. More than 300 years ago, William Penn designed Philadelphia to be a “Greene Country Towne,” where squares, parks, and open spaces would allow residents to escape the pace and unhealthy conditions found in 17th-century European cities. In 1690 Governor Penn required for every five acres cleared one acre of forest should be preserved. Franklin led a commission to regulate waste water in the city (leading to the first waste water treatment in the country). Where I am working, Fairmount Park encompasses 9,200 acres, a full 10 percent of the land in Philadelphia (city and county).

Recently I have been rereading Jane Jacobs, and mulling over how our concepts about cities might also apply to conserved lands. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities she commented on how many of the City Beautiful centers failed, attracting not successful small business and shops but “tattoo parlors and second-hand-clothing stores, or else just nondescript, dispirited decay.” Jane died too soon. Perhaps it took cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh longer than she expected to revise their approaches to their once-celebrated centers. Philadelphia’s city center now ranks among the tops in the nation in downtown residents. Pittsburgh has been ranked by Forbes as America’s most livable city.

My work is with parks and open spaces, not with buildings and the urban core. Yet in recent years I have been increasingly interested in how these once flourishing cities, places where city leaders once invested in parks, museums, and grand esplanades, are now using these same inherited assets to reinvent themselves. These cultural, historical, and natural amenities anchor cities, and offer a stable platform for reconstructing and reinvigorating the society that surrounds them. Yet there is an undeniable rule of law that governs these places. To have treasured places, you must protect treasured spaces.

How do the two differ? Place, for my purposes, is a physical location with defined metes and bounds. For example, the national park lands that include the Grand Canyon can be shown on a map with clear, defined boundaries. Most conservation organizations and land conservancies are focused on place.

Grand Canyon - The Place

Space, however, is psychological rather than physical. The federal lands that comprise Grand Canyon National Park do not limit the psychological space occupied by the Grand Canyon. That space includes Flagstaff, Sedona, the Havasupai Indian Reservation, the bordering national forest land, the smell of pinyon burning, the sounds of elk bugling, the crashing of the Colorado River as it slices through the canyon, and the colors of a sunset painted on the canyon walls. The Grand Canyon space is filled individually, with each person defining “Grand Canyon” based on their personal experiences and exposure. Space is the sum of all that is known and felt about a given place or group of places. Space is identity rather than body. While place has discrete, physical boundaries, space has soft, amorphous edges. Space is of the mind; place is of the land.

Grand Canyon Space Example

This chart shows a rudimentary space model for the Grand Canyon. The number of places I am showing is arbitrary; certainly, Grand Canyon is a far more complex landscape than this. More importantly, this model should be three dimensional (at least more than this Powerpoint chart illustrates). If you have visited the Grand Canyon, what do you recall about your visit? What spaces do these sensations occupy in your mind? Mine would include the smell of pinyon in a Flagstaff restaurant, an American three-toed woodpecker feeding in a burned area in the national forest, and the thrill of standing with my grandchildren at the South Rim mesmerized by the sunset.

Grand Canyon Sunset

Here are a couple of additional examples to mull over. The White House is a small place, occupying an extraordinarily large space in the American mind. The Alamo in San Antonio is similar. Many visitors to the Alamo are surprised that the mission is so small. Fairmount Park is an expansive, diverse place, but a small space. Few people know the actual extent of the Fairmount Park system, and relate only to their favorite place within it.

Conservation agencies and organizations are understandably focused on place. A place can be purchased, fenced, posted, and protected. However, how people relate to these efforts (and their willingness to support their protection) is defined by their personal perception of the space. Whether or not they value a place is determined by how they perceive the space.

Therefore my second step in reshaping our conservation movement (remember the first? Take it to the streets!) is that we need to create more spaces for places. The world is full of place conservers. We need more space makers.

McDonalds is a fast-food joint that sells hamburgers. There are around 14,000 McDonalds in the US, and each occupies a discrete place or location. But what about the space that McDonalds occupies in the American psyche? Consider that 93% of American children can identify a McDonalds by its golden arches. How many can identify a national park by the arrowhead logo? Which has a larger American space – McDonalds or the National Park Service?

Fortunately, the technology exists for us to create space for place. We do not need McDonalds advertising budget to construct an American space for American places. Consider all of the places that should be brought to the attention of the public, and the spaces they combine to form. I am interested in the smallest neighborhood park to Yellowstone National Park. How many are in your community? What spaces do they occupy in your and your neighbor’s lives?

The U.S. is in the midst of the worst economic recession in my lifetime. When state and federal budgets are slashed, who gets cut first? Places, such as parks, refuges, and sanctuaries are the first to go. Is this because they are not valuable places? Of course not. Political leaders hatchet our treasured places because they occupy limited space in the interests and concerns of the voting public. In other words, our places are easy marks, and we who strive to protect them are defenseless chumps.

I am not willing to go through another budget or political cycle so defenseless. We must develop the tools to collect our places into aggregations that occupy critical social space in the lives of our citizens. It is not enough to limit our efforts to simply protecting places. We have no choice but to squeeze ourselves into the American space.

I do have ideas about how to accomplish this, and I will write more in the near future. We need the tools to stitch these places into seamless spaces, and the media necessary to present these spaces to America.

In the meantime, let me remind you of my first two steps of a renewed conservation movement:

1. Take it to the street
2. Space for place

Ted Eubanks
13 Sep 2010

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Culture of Conservation – Taking it to the Street

Conservation, Culture of Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, Politics, Recreation, , , , , ,

The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture—Gaylord Nelson

Gifford Pinchot popularized, rather than coined, the word conservation. He placed his mark on the word by combining conservation with ethic, embedding his concept of conservation in an almost forgotten book The Fight for Conservation. Aldo Leopold followed with the Land Ethic which states that conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. For the past century American conservation has heeded these tenets.

Yet even Leopold spoke of the difficulties in applying these rules, these ethics. In Land Ethic Leopold asks the following:

Despite nearly a century of propaganda, conservation still proceeds at a snail’s pace; progress still consists largely letterhead pieties and conventional oratory. On the back forty we still slip two steps backward for each forward stride. The usual answer to this dilemma is ‘more conservation education.’ No one will debate this, but is it certain that on the volume of education needs stepping up? Is something lacking in the content as well?

Walter Russell Mead has recently written that the environmental movement has “become the voice of the establishment, of the tenured, of the technocrats.” Leopold spoke of “letterhead pieties and conventional oratory.” Edward Abbey said “that which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.” What all are saying (or at least implying) is that conservation, to remain relevant, must constantly evolve. Yet as conservation has become more business and less movement, the forces constraining evolution have become increasingly restrictive and dampening. At these junctures evolution must become revolution.

Over a decade ago I served on the board of the National Audubon Society. One spring we met in Jamestown, North Dakota, where we continued with our debates and discussions about a new strategic plan for the Society. I recall sitting in the Holiday Inn, unable to sleep, and slipping over to my computer to write a section of the plan that I called the culture of conservation. Although the board at that time adopted my thoughts, not long after I left the board the concept vacated as well.

Now I want my idea back.

As I have written before, the conservation and environmental movements (which I will simplify to movement) have been signaled onto the wrong track. I will avoid the Casey Jones analogy, but my message is the same. I see trouble ahead, and trouble behind. Once an organic, social phenomenon, the movement has sacrificed its soul in the pursuit of efficiency and currency. Most environmental organizations are well-meaning, highly educated, and effectively isolated from the fabric of everyday life in America.

Here are a few off-the-cuff examples. In the U.S. two out of three Americans are white, non-Hispanic (according to the census bureau). About 16% of Americans are Hispanic, and around 13% are black. I know of no environmental organization, agency, or department where employment or membership remotely reflects these percentages. The environmental movement, save environmental justice, remains lily white.

In the U.S., only 27 percent of the population has earned a college degree. Only 8.9 percent of Americans have a Masters’ Degree and only 3 percent have earned a PhD. Yet the conservation and resource agencies and organizations usually require an advanced degree as a term of employment. We are white and egg-heads.

Environmental threats occur in every state. In recent years, for example, the Gulf of Mexico (Katrina, Ike, the BP gusher, the dead zone) has been a hot spot. Rural communities are often disproportionately at risk, for example the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania and New York states. Yet the national environmental groups office in the largest cities in the U.S., and at the edges of the country. Here are a few examples:

National Audubon Society – New York City
Defenders of Wildlife – Washington D.C.
National Wildlife Federation – Washington D.C.
American Bird Conservancy – Washington D.C.
Environmental Defense Fund – New York City
The Conservation Fund – Washington D.C.
Defenders of Wildlife – Washington D.C.
The Trust for Public Land – San Francisco
The Sierra Club – San Francisco

I remember an Audubon board meeting that I helped arrange in McAllen, Texas. The board and dozens of staff members would be coming to southmost Texas for this meeting. I recall one of the young female staff members cornering me before the meeting, asking me if it would be safe to drink the water.

I mention this not to embarrass the Audubon staff. I only want to illustrate my point about the groups being culturally, educationally, and geographically remote.

The environmental problems and threats we face in this country are relevant to everyman, not just white, educated urbanites. The average American earns less than $40,000 annually, does not have a college education, and is left wondering why he or she should give a damn about something as amorphous and ill-defined as global warming. We in the environmental movement may be convinced of the facts, and smugly certain of our position, but science does not win elections or hearts. The average American must understand enough to care, and care enough to vote. At this moment, he and she do neither.

You say you want a revolution? Begin and end with the people.

Lincoln said:

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

By real facts Lincoln did not mean the obscure, confusing, and tiresome arguments that only serve to alienate our audience. For example, I believe that most people understand that millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico is not a good thing. What most do not understand are the endless arguments between experts. We speculate about lost oil while Governor Barbour howls about lost jobs. We debate the pros and cons of cleaning birds while Governor Jindal promises to clean house. We aim for the head, they for the heart.

I realize that the terms grassroots and ground up are hackneyed and shopworn. This does not mean that the words are not true, even if overused. Few of the national environmental organizations are of the grassroots form. Sierra has a local chapter structure, and a few have state offices. Audubon had the most distributed, community-level organization of them all, with hundreds of local chapters. Yet over the past several years Audubon has moved away from chapters and more toward state offices and centers. The Tea Party has shown the efficacy of working at the community, even district, level. Our movement, in contrast, has spent the last decade consolidating and distancing itself from the hoi polloi.

Here is an example. A close friend in Houston wrote me to ask about volunteer opportunities to help with the Gulf gusher. Her daughter had a few free weeks of summer break to spend, and she desperately wanted to help. She called Audubon and asked about opportunities, and received the fundraising spiel in return. Ted Williams recently wrote in Audubon magazine that “the very last thing Gulf Coast birds need are well-meaning amateurs crashing through nesting habitat.” Dead wrong, Ted. What the movement needs is those 17,000 potential volunteers to become crusaders, and what better way to engage them than through their willingness to pitch in and help. We would all agree that nesting areas would be off limits to the uninitiated. But that leaves the vast majority of the shore eligible for cleaning by volunteers.

Our movement has become Conservation Inc. We need to step forward to the past, and spark conservation back to life.

Walter Russell Mead notes the following:

Intellectually and culturally, environmentalists came out of the same movement as critics of crude urban development like Jane Jacob (The Death and Life of Great American Cities). They celebrated the diverse local, small-scale adaptations that reflected the knowledge of communities as opposed to the grandiose plans of the social engineers.

Precisely. Jane Jacobs dug in against Robert Moses and the planners who would have stripped New York of the diversity that is its hallmark. She worked at the neighborhood level, yet argued that her concepts also had application on a global scale. Jacobs spent her life concerned with city culture, and the ways in which enlightened, empowered citizens can persevere. I will argue that conservation is a community as well, peopled by well meaning, dedicated citizens that simply need to be empowered, enlightened, and appreciated.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has—Margaret Mead

Yes, a small group of people can provoke a cultural shift. Change is contingent on these provocateurs, the tiny legion willing to face friend and foe alike. My previous article focused on one of these provocateurs, Drew Wheelan. Drew is a person willing to allow the public to see a problem (the Gulf gusher) through his eyes. We need more of his kind to help us drag this movement out of the muck. I am not arguing that the ecocrats and Conservation Inc. should go away. We need all the help we can get. I am arguing, though, that we need to quickly reintroduce ourselves to our neighbors and ask for their help, not just their money. In this we are years behind, so we have little time to waste.

This is just the first part of a rewriting of conservation and the movement that needs to take place. Future articles will address additional steps in the process. But without the public, there is no movement. Let’s take it to the street.

Ted Lee Eubanks
10 Sep 2010

Illinois River Road Scenic Byway – The Long and Winding Road

Byways, Fermata, Planning, , , , , , , , ,
Banner Marsh

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.

Ted Eubanks
15 August 2010