The Collaborative provides the Pivotal Strategy and a more refined Business Plan for a similar organization which attempts to address:

• a very local problem, i.e., activity on 400 acres of The Trust
• activity related to the people of Clearfork Valley of Tennessee and Kentucky (about 6000 people within 12 communities)
• activity regionally and nationally to achieve economic viability and improved total land and resource management
• and then, following the discussions mentioned above, may be developing an Internet group, an "e-organization" for helping, sharing, cooperating and pleasantly achieving economies of scale for effective and efficient work.

Join me, my mountain sisters and brothers, as we dance through our journey and move toward our future.

Links to related organizations and groups:

• Marie Hatfield's web site
• Federation of Appalachian Housing
• Christian Appalachian Project
• In Praise of Mountain Women
• National Congress of Neighborhood Women (Advocates women's and community development), 249 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211, (718) 388-6666
• GROOTS,Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood
• Appalachian-based Community Development Education, ABCDE
• Glenmary
• Lasting Forests within which Rural System.com is developed
• Stories from an Appalachian Community by Marie Cirillo
• The Jellico Rock Obstacle Challenge Course
• The Eastern Rock Crawling Contest
• The Conservation Management Institute at Virginia Tech (fwiexchg@vt.edu)
• Managing Wholes
• The Watershed Management Council
• The Native Fish Conservancy
• Institute for Local Self-Reliance

An additional powerful set of links is now available.

As we try "to get it all together" we test a systems approach to our work individually and within groups within the area. As part of such an approach, we know we have to go after information. That topic is addressed and how the Internet now offers an alternative for getting information to do good work to people who have difficulties getting to major libraries.

We seek to work with advocates of community-based research,

• suggesting a systems approach
• suggesting highly applied studies
• suggesting developing a forestry (rural-land) cooperative
• suggesting a "rationally-robust strategy" as described in Agroforestry Systems (Giles, R. H., R. G. Oderwald, and A. U. Ezealor. 1993. Toward a rationally robust paradigm for agroforestry systems. Agroforestry Systems 24:21-37.)
• striving for high accountability and rapid adaptations when objectives are poorly achieved by following research-results conclusions.

A large number of issues are faced by the people of the Clearfork, particularly in terms of community participation, team work, gaining funds for studies, and making any research that is done highly relevant to the community. Social and economic disparities and problems, such as poor housing, health problems and health care, high unemployment, low attainment of educational qualifications, low socio-economic levels, even some drug-use, are at work in the area. Key environmental issues include high intensity rainstorms and flooding, erosion, groundwater (and thus well-water) affected by mining, and shifting employment in mining and natural resource fields. Surface mining has declined with the decline in market for high sulfur coal in the area. Open surface mines remain. Health problems along with unemployment and limited education create other related problems affected by the limited, difficult road system. Fossil fuel shortages for transportation to schools and employment loom as a old but increasing problem. Congressional Farm Bills are designed to help rural America and have. The overwhelming majority of that help, however, has gone to a narrow slice of rural people: growers of subsidized crops. The last Farm Bill spent 82 percent of funds on farmers and 0.7 percent on non-farm rural development efforts. What’s more, growers of five crops (corn, cotton, wheat, rice and soybeans), which together account for only 30 percent of U.S. agricultural revenue, got 92 percent of the payments. The top 10 percent of producers have grabed some 70 percent of the payments. A system that subsidizes 30 percent of farmers and leaves the other 70 percent to fend for themselves, creates an uneven and politically unstable playing field. Why, for example, should specialty crops—equal in value to program crops—get no payments? We know that few people (about7%) living in rural areas are really "farmers" but we need to clarify the needs of rural people and the way that public funds are allocated.

Efforts are underway to develop an Institute, one aspect of which will be to develop a local history and local knowledge base. This action may include: seminars-workshops, an art competition, interviews, field visits/discussion, participatory field work with students, newsletters, radio station activity, maps, posters, house visits and personal discussion, and presentations at schools. Using regional resources (not necessarily site specific) such as using archives, historic photographs, manuscripts, home photographs, and museums will be encouraged Special email contributions will be arranged. This knowledge will be made available to the elements of the Clearfork Collaborative as it is gained. This will be possible via the Internet as at no time previously. Knowledge and will be gained from and made available to the community, stakeholders, and future generations. Cultural benefits accruing from such a knowledge base include the formation of a Clearfork archive on environmental, cultural, social and economic knowledge. Information will ultimately be used to build models, prioritise rehabilitation work, and to develop management scenarios, using a balance of environmental, economic, social and cultural factors.

Research and Conference Results

In October 2003 a conference was held in Anchorage, Alaska to discuss Linking Healthy Forests and Communities - Successful Strategies and Future Directions (USDA Forest Service PNW-GTR-631, 2005). The following are generalized observations from that strongly regional meeting.

Forestry was once said to provide stable level of jobs and income for residents but that now seems less clear. Advocates of forest management suggest that forestry offers opportunities for economic growth. The World Commission on Environment and Development 1987 said that sustainable forestry was linked to sustainable development and now includes concerns about the social well-being of associated human communities. (Well-being is used in the sense reflecting both jobs (economic well-being) and community attributes contributing to notions of community stability. Social well-being is a measure of both the capacity of communities to respond to changes and the socioeconomic status of people.)

In Alaska as in the Clearfork, one industry (forestry or coal) offered potential economic development activities that would increase the stability of communities. A more comprehensive strategy is now needed. The shift can be painful.

A measureable type-one objective is needed such as "to improve economic prosperity that is socially just and environmentally sound." Each part can be measured and formulated along with reasonable transitions.

It is now recognized that most communities have mixed economies (ecological diversity in another context) and that their vitality is linked to other factors than commodity production. There are local living traditions and strong sense of place. The major terms that connote the ability of a community to take advantages of opportunities and to deal with change are:

• capacity
• resiliency
• viability
• adaptability

Factors useful in assessing community resilency or adaptability are:

1. Population size
   • Small (low resiliency) commonly less than 1500
   • Large (high resiliency) greater than 5000
2. Economic diversity varys with population size
3. Civic infrastructure - high resilience with strong civic leadership, social cohesion, positive attitudes to change
4. Amenities - combines civic and natural
5. Location - major trade routes, near service centers, shopping or resort destinations. Spatial isolation is commonly a characteristic of low resiliency)

Connectivity to broad regional economies, community cohesiveness and place attachment, and civic leadership are greater factors in determining community viability and adaptability than employment based factors.

The tasks of change are formidable. Helping people see the smooth relations, the sameness among forest prservation, forest stewardship and management, and vital human communities lies ahead.

Check out the developing and changing Contents of The Collaborative.