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Upper Stony Creek Watershed Restoration
Location:
California (within Mendocino
National Forest)
Case description (read more)
Many watersheds throughout the United States have been affected by farming and ranching activity that has degraded streams and land systems. In the Upper Stony Creek Watershed, the Natural Resource Conservation Service has taken the lead in building a productive network of relationships and restoration projects between ranchers, scientists, and experts in several state and federal agencies. Their collaboration has enhanced understanding of the ecosystem and the stresses upon it, and has fostered commitment to sustained efforts to restore and manage lands in this watershed in economically and ecologically viable ways.
Primary partners
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Primary objectives
- To work with local private landowners to promote changes to range land management to improve soil, water, and habitat quality in the watershed.
- To stretch limited resources by relying on outside agency personnel for specialized expertise.
- To conduct scientific studies in areas where they direct their management and restoration efforts.
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Year of initiation
1991 |
What is fostering progress? (read more)
- Gaining trust and finding common ground: Wendell Gilgert (the project’s former coordinator) said his staff had been "lucky enough to find ranchers who are willing to reach for a common goal and to take risks to do so".
- An educational component: educational outreach is necessary to help provide people with guidance and information.
What challenges were faced and how were they overcome? (read more)
- Building trust: NRCS staff sought to involve key landowners who were willing to build trust and try new things. The projects of these landowners were then used as demonstration models to gain credibility among other members of the ranching community.
- Accepting change: “The biggest challenge is the turnover of land ownership…What we don’t have a handle on is the fact that we can’t force the new land owner or grazer into a new, prescribed grazing plan," explained Dennis Nay, the program’s current Range Specialist.
- Lack of human resources: The local NRCS office has three field staff to cover an area totaling four million acres. Gilgert noted that his small staff “simply cannot provide the level of service that is needed…there’s just not enough of us.”
What lessons can be drawn? (read more)
- Change is slow: Change tends to be incremental, and that anyone working to promote change needs to be patient and help people ease into the new program or approach. It is necessary to commit and maintain long-term staff on projects.
- Identifying leaders: Gilgert recommended finding and involving the innovators in the community, the people willing to do things first. Those people can provide a model for others to follow.
- Learn from failures: Although early successes were important in gaining trust and building support, Gilgert also emphasized the importance of learning from failures,“You cannot be afraid of failures. Don’t try to hide them. One, because other people will find out about them. Two, you learn critical things from them and allow other people to learn from them.”
- Monitoring is critical: "(it is) something we always said we were going to do, yet we’ve never staffed people to do it,” explained Ney. Consequently, there is no substantive way to evaluate the progress or success of the project.
Contact information at the Forest Service
Related Links
This site was developed by the Ecosystem Management Initiative through a partnership with the US Forest Service and the US Department of Interior. Read more.
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