Two branches of Sacandaga River converging, which later is dammed forming the Great Sacandaga Lake (reservoir). USDA Forest Service photo by Julie Capito.
Personally, living and growing up in Upstate, NY, my local lake—the Great Sacandaga Lake, which is technically a reservoir—its tributaries, and surrounding lands were and still are a place I care for deeply. My relationship to those places were foundational, leading me to the educational and career path I walk today. For two summers, I had the pleasure of working right at the lake’s shore. In fact, in my position as a “boat steward,” I was tasked with inspecting boats for any animal or plant material they might accidentally be transporting to another waterbody. Beyond protecting the lake and its water quality from the introduction of pervasive aquatic life, I also took my lunch break to pick up bottles and cans found in the parking lot left behind by the boaters. I did this to help prevent wildlife casualties from interaction with the plastics as well as knowing that it would improve others’ visits to the site (the extra five cents from the bottle deposit didn’t hurt either!). One thing that I was never quite sure of was if there were any other coordinated efforts or organizations that stewarded the lake, in addition to the organization that I was working for and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. In honesty, I wasn’t even sure what stewardship meant!
1. Systems of Care: Drawing your network of stewards
Systems of Care is a facilitation tool that uses drawing and storytelling to reveal who takes care of a community and place. This tool is meant to be used in a group setting, but can also be utilized individually. It is important to set a time limit to the activity, which will also influence the level of detail and story development each drawing will have. But generally, this activity involves three steps:
- Choose the starting point and object of care,
- Draw and tell the narrative, and
- Reflect on the narrative to understand which relationships and sectors are involved in taking care of surroundings.
It is adjustable based on the participants’ and facilitators’ interests, and to make room for emergent themes drawn from participants’ lived experiences. It has been applied in multiple settings, including: a workshop for community-based climate resilience; a classroom in understanding community creation on a college campus; and a virtual setting to exchange experiences in caretaking across borders. A worksheet has been created to help guide individuals through the activity as well as a two-pager which describes two approaches to the activity. I attempted to draw my own System of Care for my hometown “lake,” to put more thought into who the caretakers of place really were. See below what I came up with!
System of Care for the Great Sacandaga Lake during my summers boat stewarding. USDA Forest Service photo by Julie Capito.
After completing this exercise that took me around 15 minutes, I was able to reflect. I noticed that the State’s management relationship to the area was most pronounced. Additionally, I was able to see vast gaps in my knowledge of this system, including the activities these organizations take part in and if there are organizations I excluded from my drawing simply because knowledge of the stewardship network isn’t overly accessible to members of the “public,” like myself. These reflections lead me to the next tool from the NYC Urban Field Station Stewardship Team, which can help to create a publicly viewable network of stewardship actors in an area!
2. STEW-MAP: Mapping and tracking stewardship groups
Left: USDA FS STEW-MAP Website; Right: List of global locations where STEW-MAP has been completed as of July 2024. Four additional sites, not listed on the map are currently in the process of implementing STEW-MAP.
Several resources have been developed to assist organizations who have an interest in implementing a STEW-MAP project in their local area including: STEW-MAP Implementation Guide, Geospatial Guide & Network Guide as well as STEW-MAP Step by Step Slides. Additionally, there have been several recorded videos including a lightning talk and a training webinar that are available as resources to folks interested in learning more. STEW-MAP provides insight into the stewardship network and the diverse array of actors who care for a place. Inclusion of these identified actors into the decision-making processes of natural resources management and stewardship as well as fostering a sense of belonging in those spaces is what this next tool aims to foster.
3. Stewardship Salons: Learning from place and each other
Stewardship Salons are collaborative learning spaces that foster a relational, practitioner network for voices in natural resources care and stewardship. They were inspired by a 2017 workshop called “Learning from Place” that brought Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani, a Native Hawaiian master teacher, and her learners to exchange with NYC stewardship practitioners. Seven years and thirty Salons later, the NYC Urban Field Station, in collaboration with NYC Parks, is still hosting Salons, bringing together natural resource practitioners, artists, scientists, and other stewards. We currently host four salons per year in the NYC region each focusing on a variety of subjects including land-based and water-based natural resources, the arts, Indigenous knowledge and other culturally-rooted knowledges. We have drafted a guide to share our method and provide a starting point for other communities to host and create these co-learning spaces. Participating in these spaces can inspire and build individuals’ capacity to continue to see value in their work and what they bring to the natural resources field despite the challenges our changing world can bring. These Salons can function as professional development opportunities for individuals and provide the opportunity to collaboratively learn with others outside their typical work team, fostering an exchange of ways of knowing.
Origami butterfly and migration story activity on milkweed paper during artist’s Michele Brody’s Stewardship Salon which addressed topics of invasive species language and migration. USDA Forest Service photo by Lindsay Campbell.
The post The Caretakers of Place: Better Understanding Stewardship with Resources from the USDA Forest Service NYC Urban Field Station appeared first on Urban Waters Learning Network.