Advice From the Field- Preparing for county-level buffer work

Advice From the Field- Preparing for county-level buffer work

2010-2017

The Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (MASWCD) regularly brings Area Districts together for informational meetings. Areas 2, 4, and 8 comprise 32 counties straddling the transition zone from predominantly agriculture land to forested lake country. They invited the Freshwater Society to participate in Area meetings held in Park Rapids, Glenwood, and Rogers between June and November, 2015. Staff members from the Freshwater Society gave presentations on the findings in their report, Farm To Stream: Recommendations for Accelerating Soil and Water Stewardship followed by work sessions with SWCD Managers and technical staff. The sessions were structured to give SWCD board and staff member’s time and opportunity to think about how to prepare their respective organizations for new work and challenges they will face due to the buffer law. Freshwater Society staff crafted questions to spark conversations among participants and elevate inter-district thinking among peers with a wide range of capacity and perspectives. This summary brings together the individual voices from MASWCD Areas who participated in conversations into a group voice that speaks, to peers, policymakers and community members. Conversations fell into eight major themes, and were surprisingly consistent across all three areas of the state. Taken together, they frame an approach for how SWCDs can organize their work on the buffer law, and avoid some obvious pitfalls. It is noteworthy that much of the work will need to be done before SWCDs begin to implement the new law. Many of the markers of success relate to how well SWCDs, counties and communities prepare themselves for the work involved. Preparation for the work is critical so that technical, social, or political shortcomings do not undermine progress.

Freshwater Society
McKnight Foundation
Mike Jorgenson, Big Stone SWCD and Area 2 Chair
Tom Schulz, Wadena SWCD and Area 8 Chair
Rollie Cleveland, Chisago SWCD and Area 4 Chair
Craig Mell, District Administrator, Chisago SWCD
Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts

Freshwater Society

12

Water Education, Outreach & Community Capacity

Guidebook

2010-2019

No

Creative Commons-BY-NC. This material is usable under a Creative Commons – Attribution – Non-Commercial license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 Visit our website for additional details and suggested citations. http://lib.tst.edu/archives/rights/intro.html

Minnesota Water Research Digital Library