Hello,
I recently changed jobs from Keep America Beautiful doing recycling to the American Forest Foundation. AFF works to engage woodland owners in conservation efforts. Many of our target populations are in small rural areas. For example, we are working to increase the number of individual landowner conservation easements in rural New England between 2 high value forests, helping to create a wildlife corridor. The target population is 2000.
A similar number of households is part of our work in rural OR. Our goal there is to engage woodland owners in timber management around fuel reduction to decrease wildfire risk. The area is adjacent to a large public tract of land where wildfire reduction work is taking place also.
Can anyone provide me some advice or examples of interventions done with small target audiences in rural areas such as this? What type of messaging worked (we have heard pride of place is important)? Who were the messengers (we know trust is a barrier)?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Kelley
Kelley Dennings
United States
Advice needed - how to reach small rural populations w an intervention
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Thanks. I will look into that.
Kelley Dennings
United States
Hi Kelly,
Sounds like an interesting project! We work in an area where we have groups of population spread out over a large terrain too and there are no easy answers for sure! I would recommend you look at the documentation and engagement strategies that went into developing Vancouver's Greenest City Action Plan (link below). Although it may seem strange as Vancouver is not exactly small, their ability to target and engage multiple smaller groups throughout this process was impressive to me (and I know the City is proud of these efforts and always willing to share info too).
Best of luck!
http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/greenest-city-2020-action-plan.aspx
Karen Mason-Bennett
Program Coordinator
NEAT
Canada
Hi Kelley
Something that we have in Australia is Land for Wildlife. In some states, this is run by not-for-profits (http://www.qmdc.org.au/biodiversity-pests/land-for-wildlife.html) and in others, it's a government initiative (http://www.depi.vic.gov.au/environment-and-wildlife/community-programs/land-for-wildlife, http://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/off-reserve-conservation/land-for-wildlife). In all cases, it's a non-binding "membership" whereby the land owners agree to manage for biodiversity values (including protecting vegetation) and they become part of a community that receives a sign for their front gate, regular newsletters and (depending on the organisation in their areas) events etc. They also get an assessment of what's on their properties and free advice on possible management actions. Again, depending on their local organisation, there can be a "next step" where the organisation can help fund part of projects to fence off sensitive areas etc.
My organisation finds it works well as there are many people - farmers, graziers, those on lifestyle acreage - who do want to protect vegetation, they just don't want something binding that might impact on sales price. However, speaking for QMDC, if we put money toward, for example, a fencing project, that comes with maintenance requirements.
Good luck.
Lisa Yorkston
Queensland Murray-Darling Committee
Australia
www.qmdc.org.au