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Guest Column
Bringing the buzz back to nature MICHAEL ALLEN | Guest columnist Parks and Natural Resources Director, Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation
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here have all the _____ gone? Have you ever heard someone say this before? Absolutely you have because change is inevitable, and some things are not where they once were. The world outside your window is different than it was before. More development has occurred. Bees are not buzzing around the clover in your yard. The buzz is missing from the human interaction with natural resources in your community — sometimes quite literally. Change is coming for me, it’s coming for you and it’s happening every day. We can’t stop it, but we can embrace it. We can anticipate it, and we can engage it. At Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation (CCPR), we are striving to understand the changes that are happening to our natural landscapes within our community and beyond. In fact, we’ve implemented deliberate changes to our organizational structure so we can develop plans and effect strategies for adapting to the inevitable change. Many of our solutions revolve around engaging the community and local
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businesses to support our efforts in maintaining the value of our natural resources. We are creating opportunities to measure water quality, evaluate habitat and put priority species on a map. Let’s take a deeper look at some of the conversation and evolution we have at CCPR everyday in hopes that it sparks a conversation or two with you along your ever-changing path. We take a three-pronged approach to create positive stewardship strategies and gain support for long-term sustainability in our natural areas. Utilizing volunteers, expert contractors and qualified staff, we share the workload and navigate strategies for success. Like many public agencies, we operate with finite resources that need to be maximized and leveraged to gain the biggest impact with every hour spent. How do you we do that? 1. Support from our Parks Foundation allows us to engage expert contractors who help us identify priority habitat locations based on comprehensive plant survey data. 2. Our staff in turn implements management strategies to these locations and furthers the mission to foster biodiversity. 3. Every year we deliver stewardship opportunities to get our community physically and intellectually engaged in the natural areas of our parks. I learned a long time ago at Indiana University that experiential education creates lasting moments, which can be retained for years and help establish influential perspectives. We want our community members to have these tangible experiences through our volunteer
