Community vision and SWOT – potential services
The following pages show the community visions and SWOT analyses the planning committee collaborated to produce at Meeting One, and the potential services identified for each group at Meeting Two.
The following pages show the community visions and SWOT analyses the planning committee collaborated to produce at Meeting One, and the potential services identified for each group at Meeting Two.
Rick Enser said
First, I wanted to extend my thanks to Amy for forming this blog – it’s a great way to review what was discussed at the first meeting, and an opportunity for participants to expound on their ideas, and in that spirit I’m introducing another thought concerning community and our vision of what is important for all the groups identified at our first meeting.
Sometimes overlooked in discussions about fostering sustainable communities is the importance of the natural component (call it ecosystem integrity, biodiversity, or simply the natural world) that maintains the ecological services so important to the quality of life of all community members. Our knowledge on how critical these processes are to human health has grown considerably in recent years, and a vision for all of our identified groups should certainly include sustaining, and improving, the quality of life that exists in this region. The threats to this quality are by now almost legend – pollution, climate change, declining biodiversity, deteriorating diets, and more; and although the mechanisms for dealing with these problems appear daunting, a critical aspect in attaining solutions is fostering an informed public.
In this regard, let me offer the following observation. Environmental educators often cite the results of a study which found that young people on average can recognize hundreds of corporate logos but only a handful of plants and animals native to where they live. Certainly, a partial reason for this is the amount of time the average young person spends watching television (one estimate is a little over four hours per day), or on the Internet, or text-messaging, leaving little time for the kinds of activities that were commonplace before the advent of this media barrage – outdoor exercise and exploration, reading, contemplation, and creative activity. As a result, young people (and probably many adults as well) are losing the sense of community and their connection to the natural world that is so important in sustaining quality of life.
I have not been able to determine where that study was conducted, although I’m sure it was not in Vermont as there are many young people here that do have that connection and sense of place. In contrast, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the study was conducted in my home state of Rhode Island – where there are more malls and big box stores per capita than any other New England state, where bans on water usage are common during the summer because of widespread lawn watering, and where the primary agricultural commodity is turf grass. As a result, Rhode Islanders have become increasingly dependant on other parts of the country for their food and other necessities, and the sense of community that comes from people providing for each other continues to erode.
My wife and I moved to Vermont seeking the quality of life we knew existed here, and will vigorously help to protect it for the sake of our young son and his generation. We bring a unique perspective because of our past lives in the second most densely populated state, a perspective that is probably not “appreciated” by many Vermonters who have not experienced such a degree of environmental decay. The question remains, how will Vermonters respond as that decay inevitably spreads from southern New England into this region? Will they be prepared?
In this regard, there is an additional concept sometimes cited concerning these issues called “environmental generational amnesia”. The idea is that people take the natural environment they experience during childhood as the norm against which they measure environmental degradation later in life. Theoretically, with each ensuing generation the amount of degradation increases, but each generation takes that degraded condition as the nondegraded condition.
I could cite many examples from urbanizing environments, but locally we might consider how portions of the White River have been degraded in recent years by the proliferation of the invasive plant, Japanese Knotweed. Those who have fished these areas for years are clearly cognizant of the degrading impacts of this invasion – loss of native species and fishing opportunities. But those born during the last decade will view the masses of knotweed on the river banks as “the way it is”, and with this viewpoint they may potentially become more accepting of future degradations (e.g., riverside development) that appear to be benign, but are in fact more destructive when combined with the effects of previous impacts, such as the current spread of knotweed. And with each new insult the quality of life we cherish surreptitiously declines.
Dealing with generational amnesia is not easy, the reason being that by definition the problem arises because of an increasingly impoverished natural environment that limits the richness and diversity of a child’s interaction with the natural world. Accordingly, one response is to engage children in a dialog about what has been lost, and to use this dialog to help shape the future. Of course, if allowed to, such dialog can turn into adults either romanticizing the past or complaining about the present (“let me tell you how things were so much better when I was your age”). But it does provide a means for children to gain information that is otherwise unavailable to them by direct experience, allowing them to construct a better understanding of the natural world.
Other suggestions might include using historical diaries and historical novels to convey a sense of past landscapes, engaging children in restoration projects, and helping children experience more “pristine” areas. This type of work has generally been the focus of environmental education centers, or more progressive schools that, for example, engage their students in the creation of school nature trails. I’m not suggesting that libraries recreate themselves as e. e. centers, but they are surely the repositories and sources of knowledge that can assist in these endeavors, and they may find other ways to foster that sense of place and appreciation of the quality of life possessed by their constituents.