Coached Land Planning and Care

Coached Land Planning and Care

Summary

Coached Planning for Landhelp is designed to enhance the effective implementation of
research-based practices for landscape stewardship by training natural resource professionals
via the delivery of a comprehensive land management curriculum that allows target audience
specificity while maintaining a standardized planning format. This resource is easily usable by
NRCS, Cooperative Extension, Soil Conservation Districts, foresters, and other private natural
resource interest groups. The curriculum allows each local team of natural resource
professionals to identify target audience needs using subject education modules on home site
planning, soil conservation, wildlife habitat, forestry, fire protection, pest management, water
quality, nutrient management, air quality, conservation cropping, prescribed fire, traditional
agriculture, alternative agriculture, grazing principles, and other modules. Educators will be trained on the curriculum and then offerred an opportunity to use it in pilot projects.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Enhance effective resource stewardship of private lands by a collaborative multi-agency approach delivering site and audience specific natural resource curriculum.

Establish a searchable web-based curriculum resource that is easily found, searched and used by Cooperative Extension and other field educators that allows material to be readily formatted for impromptu requests or seminars.

Conduct “train-the-trainer” sessions in Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona for Cooperative Extension, NRCS, and other natural resource educators in the method and curriculum of Coached Planning for Landhelp.

Work with cooperating educators in Wyoming, Colorado, and Arizona to format and conduct pilot projects allowing educators from each state to use the flexible curriculum to target topics and audiences selected in those areas.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Working as a three-state collaboration a web site titled “www.landhelp.org” was designed and placed into service.

Cooperators placed factsheets, links to other web resources and technical guides on the web site.

Colorado has initiated the training process with one seminar on Landhelp in 2002. Additional trainings are already scheduled for Wyoming and Colorado in February 2003 and Arizona in March of 2003.

Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona have met with Project Coordinator and begun planning their pilots projects. Diversity of topics and format reflect the flexibility of the curriculum. Colorado will conduct 2-3 projects in geographic watersheds addressing small acreage management. Wyoming will offer “mini-proposals” to all ANR Cooperative Extension educators across the state to address locally specific topics like absentee landowners, small acreage education and non-point source pollution. Arizona has opted to do one large project with over 24 educators working togather to address community economic stability on the Navajo Reservation and its effect on resource management.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Efforts to include USDA and other resource materials in the resource pool has garnered the growing support of the USDA NRCS, Cooperative Extension, environmental groups and agriculture production groups.

Beginning with a skeptical group of 37 cooperative extension, forester and NRCS educators this curriculum site now has over 247 regular users accessing over 1,000 resource documents in a quick and easy manner.

Collaborators: