Blog

Vote with Your Fork and other agricultural truffles

Genevieve Marsh — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:27:19 -0700

I have just discovered a delightful website chronicling the growing agricultural revival. The website is based on telling stories about young farmers through film. They have authors (some well known ones too, like good old Wendell Barry and Vandana Shiva) writing essays about the general subject. Check it out: The Greenhorns.

And one more great website to check out (and a great place for a snazzy sticker): Vote with Your Fork!

I am hoping that there are some local Sierra movements like these--love to hear about them here!

New Resource for the Sierra: Sierra Nevada Yard & Garden

Genevieve Marsh — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:09:45 -0700

Just released yesterday, the Sierra Nevada Yard and Garden, a homeowners' guide to landscaping in the Sierra Nevada, gives Sierra residents a comprehensive tool for creating Sierra friendly yards. The space around our homes can reduce our risk of wildfire, improve quality and quantity of water, help us to live in harmony with wildlife, improve soils, and create beautiful, easy to maintain landscapes suited to our climate conditions. Writing this book was a collaborative effort: bringing together water quailty, fire, and vegetation recommendations that so often require four or five resources, rather than just one--making it easier for the resident and increacing communication and collaboration between organizations.

The book can be downloaded for free or purchased online from the Sierra Nevada Alliance's website: http://www.sierranevadaalliance.org/publications/SNLG/ .

Additionally, if you are interested in this topic, the Allinace is hosting a workshop, the Sierra Nevada Yard and Garden Summit, on September 12 in North Tahoe. Register now, for the workshop is filling up!

Water words that work

Genevieve Marsh — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:10:10 -0700

I just came back from River Network's national conference, River Rally. A truly reinvigorating experience. And one thing that has really stuck in my mind as a great tool, and a something to chew on for communicators and educators alike, is how to speak to that larger American public. Eric Eckl, the man behind Water Words that Work, taught us some new word-tools to help when we are talking in the public eye.

I learned that 30% of the general public actually might be generally knowledgeable but just not speaking up--another 40% just need to hear about it to be sympathetic. I learned that 75% of Americans have a high school degree and no more. I learned that one out of four Americans knows what watershed or biodiversity means. One out of four doesn't know the term sprawl. Water quality to many is the taste, not the pollution level. Eckl told of one man who said to him, "The water quality here is fine, it's just got polluted." I work in the Watersheds Program, and am supposed to be an educator for many Sierrans. What to do when they don't even know what my program means.

Eckl has 24 words that work, and a hit list of words not to use (as well as words to replace them). It is a great tool for anyone working in the water world or even the environmental world. And he will come speak and consult for a small, nonprofit budget sized fee.

Check the site out: www.waterwordsthatwork.com for a great presentation on the basics of communications.

| View | Upload your own

Sierra voices need to be heard--send your thoughts to the advisory members of the Statewide Watershed Program

Genevieve Marsh — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:57:37 -0800

Here is your chance to get your thoughts to representatives on the Statewide Watershed Program advisory committee--the list of members is included and you probably know one of them! I work with two of the representatives, Sarah Green and Joan Clayburgh, who I know are eager to hear from the Sierra community. Check out the info below...

An excerpt from the California Watershed Network on the Statewide Watershed Program--

Since Secretary of Resources, Mike Chrisman, announced the creation of a new Statewide Watershed Program housed at the Department of Conservation at the Watershed Forum on September 20, 2007, the Program is off to a steady start. The Advisory Committee for the Program -- comprised of one or two stakeholders from each of the State's hydrologic units, along with a few representatives from the Environmental Justice community, Sierra Nevada Range, and tribal interests, have met twice. The first meeting provided an opportunity for committee members to meet and get to know each other. The second meeting was a chance to "roll up sleeves" and get to work. The Advisory Committee and Program staff discussed important elements of developing and implementing a Watershed Program for the entire state of California. The group is currently working on guiding principles for the Statewide Watershed Program. These principles will serve as basic assumptions to guide development and implementation of the new Program.

If you have any thoughts or comments on what should be included in these guiding principles, please email them to info@watershednetwork.org by Monday, January 14, 2008.

Public outreach activities and open meetings to gather feedback from a broad audience are scheduled to take place during February and March.

Holiday on the farm

Genevieve Marsh — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:21:08 -0800

I just returned from spending the holidays at my grandfather's place, a little gentleman's farm in Maryland. He is selling his place to a developer, another 30 plus acres of rich Maryland soil and history covered over by badly planned sprawl. It is a tale of many a place here in the Sierra. But there's more to it than the typical sprawl tale. When my grandfather first started taking bids from developers, my mother started looking into alternative builders, ones who might at least plan parks and low impact development, allowing for community gardens or at least open space. She found one with the help of the Nature Conservancy, and they ended up buying the property.

The developers wanted to make this a innovative project, a development with lots of parks, compact homes like row houses, parking on the street and under houses, and so on.

But then the neighborhood got involved, and organized to stop the development. I was conflicted: a long time supporter of organizing, especially to fight sprawl. This was a grassroots group. Yet the group was actually causing the developers to have to change their environmentally friendly plans. The controversy has been going on for a long while, and the neighborhood seems to finally have found a compromise. The developers had to change their plans multiple times, and though there will be a few less families to stress the schools, or the sewer systems, the homes will be larger, the driveways will be in front of the house rather than parking underneath the townhouse or on the street at the expense of the open spaces and the old trees.

Here's the thing. I think that what these neighbors were reacting to was two fold. One, it was that they would have more cars, traffic, and people to support in their community. And two, that they would be losing a place that they were emotionally attached to, a place that somehow connected them to a larger past and to nature. It was good just knowing that a place like my grandfather's farm existed nearby. While they did accomplish reducing a few of the number of homes in the development, they lost a great deal of their tie to the more emotional connection drastically.

I started to think about the different grassroots fights I have observed or taken part in, started to think about what gets lost in that fight, in that compromise. Is it easier to forget the thing you can't really quantify the connection to place and to historical roots than it is to the numbers? This community has lost the natural place that connected to their back yard, yet they express contentment in the fact that they have met their goals, goals like 15 fewer homes and having caused the developer to lose money. In the end, the land is lost.

Coming home to the Sierra this story of my grandfather's farm has been on my mind. Here in the Sierra, many of our movements are grassroots. I hope that it might help us think through our grassroots work, how we approach and structure it and what can we compromise on in the end.