Though a tree grow ever so high, the falling leaves return to root.

-- Malay Proverb

The following discusses movements and philosophies within natural resource management, in general. Forest management falls within the scope of this literature.

The book Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Natural Resource Management states that new styles of environmental problem solving and management are emerging across the United States. Where long-held convention used to delegate decision-making powers to one government agency, there are now calls for collaboration, partnerships, joint management plans, interagency cooperation, and educational outreach. There is a movement to cross and merge boundaries of public-private, local-state, and individual-community.

Another emerging philosophy highlighted in the book is a focus on place-based knowledge and perspective within approaches to management. Rather than a one-plan-fits-all method, effective management schemes need to be ecosystem specific. This corresponds to literature we read through the semester, such as "The Landscape Context in Forest Conservation: Integrating Protection, Restoration, and Certification", regarding the benefits of landscape-level analysis.

The coordination of natural resource management is complex, with issues of ownership, resource use, scientific knowledge, local traditions, and uncertainty contributing many variables. Making Collaboration Work suggests success through coordinating and integrating the concerns and efforts of three general communities:

1. Communities of Place
• holds depth of knowledge about that landscape, both ecologically and culturally
• utilizes local knowledge of land and use (farmers, loggers, landowners, hunters, etc.)
2. Communities of Identity
• holds depth of knowledge about that ecosystem
• passion for protecting, restoring, and researching natural resources and ecosystem
3. Communities of Interest
   • holds depth of knowledge about economic use(s) of the natural resources and services
   • spans the greatest set of values held by stakeholder

There is also a call for continuity in the knowledge accumulation and the management development and practices. Within the sustainable agriculture movement there has been a series of collaborations between farmers and academic researchers in order to synthesize 'local' and 'expert' knowledge in hope that issues can more effectively be brought to attention of the greater society (Nerbonne 2002). It is also deriable to stimulate knowledge transfer accross generations. This process of knowlege accumulation and transfer concerning the protection of natural resources and managment of complex ecosystems can provide support systems leading to:

• much needed attention drawn to natural resources and management practices
• a more aware public
• more truthfully informed stakeholders
• legitimacy that strengthens necessary calls for financial support
• the creation of a perpetual community of concern
• social movement towards collaboration and partnerships
• a more socially cohesive environmental ethic

The following discusses reform movements within education, the development of new approaches to teaching, contexts for learning, and teacher-student relationships in hopes to enhance the students' education and passion for learning.

The book Teaching in the Field: Working with Students in the Outdoor Classroom makes a case for the added value of moving learning beyond the classroom for extended periods of time. The essays tell stories of experiential learning and the values instilled by those experiences. In the introduction, editor Hal Crimmel reflects on his own experiences saying, "I did not feel any connection to my studies until I went on a geology field trip . . ." (Crimmel 2). Qualities of solitude, silence, hands on learning, stimulation of the senses, interdisciplinary lessons, and living/working together offer students a greater depth of opportunity to connect their education to the "real world" -- an "experiential hook" on which to hang facts and values. One essay describes experiential learning as the space between living and strict/formal education (28). Teachers in the field hold the students attention and have increased opportunity and ability to guide the learning process (147). The experiential learning environments described by most of the essays tell of month or semester long courses for college students. This more extended and intense experiential learning method is often facilitated for K-12 students by environmental learning centers, where 1-5 night stays are common.

There is a rapidly growing discourse sourrounding place-based learning that is geared more towards K-12 education. A growing concern that student achievement is down as a result of too severe of a disconnect between the classroom and the real world, has led educators to look at the teaching opportunities that exist just beyond the school doors. Place-based learning attempts to more effectively engage students in their education by engaging them in their local communties and environments as a learning context. Using the local community as a classroom, place-based learning offers a contextual education emphasizing:

• cultural studies - attention to demographics, traditions, historical events, etc.
• ecological studies - scientific inquiry into water quality, air quality, ecosystems, wildlife, soil health, etc.
• real world problem solving - learning about and assessing community issues of injustice, degradation, conflict, etc.
• internship experiences - immersion into community economics to gain perspective, skills, career connections, etc.
• immersion in decision-making processes - participate in complexities of political processes and issues

(Knapp 2005)

In place-based education, the nature of education changes with the nature of the community, so no two place-based education systems would be exactly the same, however, the following are common characteristics, some which directly support integration of state and national educational standards:

• the surrounding environments and people serve as the foundation, not the content, to multi-disciplinary curriculum
• students are empowered as creators of knowledge, rather than consumers of knowledge as they are asked to make connections between local phenomena and general knowledge
• students' questions and concerns are valued, and help guide what is taught, providing feedback to educators as to whether or not students are achieving desired outcomes
• the teacher coordinates and administers learning, but participates more as a "co-learner"
• the classroom is moved to the community often
• evaluation of student work is partially based on contributions to community well-being and community

Strict versions of place-based education offer fairly extreme responses to education concerns, since they require drastically different approaches to both curriculum and "classroom" space. Also, place-based movements can easily run into obstacles of education standards, accountability, and negative "environmental" and "organic" stigmas held by the general education community and greater American society. The movement is seeking ways to gain legitimacy by conveying the important attributes to student learning (Schlottmann 2005). THe entire October 2005 issue of Ethics, Place, and Environment was devoted to making a case for place-based and environmental education's value to American education, in general.

Even if getting outside the classroom into the community is not the emphasis, there are general calls for more inter-disciplinary and integrative curriculums within standard K-12 resource materials. One article describes an elementary curriculum that uses trees as a focal subject to teach english, science, art, and social studies, emphasizing the ease of integration made possible by a self-contained elementary school classroom and the provided paper and technological teaching materials. Computers and technology were seen as attributes, offering pictures and virtual interactions with environments, people, animals, etc. that cannot be encountered in the surrounding community (Shaw 2005).

A common thread in much of this area of educational reform literature is the focus on instilling meaning and value between students' everyday lives and what they are learning in a classroom. David Orr, a well known environmental education philosopher proposes educational reforms that more effectively teach students to think and analyze the world around them, so they are better prepared to think about and take on the multitude of social and environmental issues they might someday encounter. He terms the desired teaching process "designing minds", where education leads to students' minds holding:

• time tested knowledge
• an intimite familiaritiy with place
• the ability to integrate experiential and theoretical knowledge
  • recognizing patterns in the world
  • making connections
  • seeing cause and effect relationships
  • valuing practicality
  • valuing the lessons gained through work