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Currents of Change

Read our draft report, Currents
of Change, on environmental status and trends of
the Narragansett Bay Region. The report is now undergoing review
by scientists, managers and citizens.
Click links to the left to read the report or visit
the Currents
of Change document development wiki to access all supporting
documents.
Currents of Change
is posted in PDF format, in three sections for easy downloading:
Join us in laying a foundation for action to meet
the environmental challenges facing Narragansett Bay. To read
the findings and recommendations from the Currents of Change Workshop,
click
here.
NBEP welcomes your comments on Currents
of Change. Please send comments to currents@nbep.org,
or call Tom Ardito at (401) 874-6492 for more information. Thanks,
in advance, for your thoughts!
NBEP will incorporate comments with the goal of
finalizing the report in July, 2009.
The
National Estuary Programs are evaluated every 3 years by the
Environmental
Protection Agency
Review
NBEP's 2009 evaluation documents here.
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Report from the Director
At the recent Currents of Change workshop, held to discuss the
implications of the information presented in the Narragansett Bay
Environmental Status and Trends report developed by the NBEP, guest
speaker John Howell traveled from Seattle, WA, to tell the workshop
participants about the experiences and lessons involved in creating
the Cascade Agenda. The Cascade Agenda, or CA, is a landscape-scaled
effort that, through an extensive inclusive process, developed a
well-defined set of goals and objectives that were tied to a long-term
vision for the multiple-watershed area. It describes a future of
conserved landscapes and vibrant towns and lays out a series of
pragmatic, marketplace strategies for the region to consider in
order to achieve that vision. Government officials, business interests,
NGOs and citizens joined in to build this agenda which was initiated
by the Cascade Land Conservancy. The CA identified what people considered
most important to protect and enhance in the Cascade region, including
forest and natural resource industries, reduction of impervious
surfaces and urban sprawl, transportation systems that support the
CA goals, recreational opportunities for all, and sustainable, livable
communities.
What started 20 years ago with only a few dedicated advocates and
a very small budget has grown into a 50-person effort supported
by state, municipal, foundation and business interests funding.
John Howell, former government official, currently a consultant
and one of the Cascade Agenda's founding board members, described
the process by which thousands of local and regional voices from
all interests were heard and used to create the long-term vision
and the goals that support that vision. The effort has attracted
significant support and participation due to both the way the CA
conducts its business and the vision it seeks to make a reality.
In marketing its messages, the CA spent extra care in the language
it used to build public support and invested in visualizations of
the lands that conveyed a powerful message - given current land
use practices and zoning, they were in clear danger of losing the
things that people found most important to their work, their lives,
their forests and their futures.
NBEP invited John in the hopes that his story of a successful regional
approach would provide lessons that we could all draw on to better
manage the Narragansett Bay ecosystem - that the CA experience would
resonate with the Currents of Change audience. By all accounts,
John's expert and engaging telling of the CA story did just that
and the lessons of that effort were reflected in the action recommendations
that were part of the workshop's results. The NBEP will continue
to seek out and bring to the discussion ecosystem management experiences
that that can be valuable to our collective efforts to protect and
restore Narragansett Bay and its watershed. For information on the
Cascade Agenda, see http://www.cascadeagenda.com.
~Richard Ribb
Click
here to read the complete
June 2009 Quarterly Report

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