TREES OF LIFE:FORESTS IN PERIL
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December 31st, 2015

12/31/2015

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Happy New Year! My last issue started a discussion on public participation and the importance of identifying your potentially effected interests. To continue, I would suggest that if you are not sure of the key people and groups you need to involve, ask a couple trusted staff with local experience to set down with you, and each of you prepare a list of important contacts you should be maintaining and meeting with. Compare lists and see how well you have done in identifying the key players within your zone of influence.
     The next step is to develop a set of objectives that must be accomplished, if you are to achieve informed consent. These are objectives for keeping your interests informed and involved, not project objectives. Remember "informed consent" does not mean agreement. It means your potentially effected interests are knowledgeable of the proposed actions and resulting impacts, and are willing to accept the best alternative. In other words they are willing to withhold their veto power. Informed consent is 5.1 on an agreement scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being total disagreement and 10 being total agreement. This is do-able! 
     Once you have identified the people and groups that need to be involved, you need to develop a schedule of key points where you will need their review and comments. Remember some interest may try to remain outside the process intentionally, so they can disrupt the process near the end. You must identify them and make sure your other groups and individuals are aware these persons have received all the information and special invitations to participate. It is now time to provide a schedule of proposed time frames when information and opportunities for discussion, are planned to occur. I know time frames are not always met, but adequate notification of changes and updates are very important. These initial steps in the public participation process is where the "Decision- Makers" credibility is established. I can not emphasize enough how important your personal participation in meeting with your interests is to the credibility you will need at the end of the process.  I have found an advisory council from outside your organization can be very helpful in your public participation effort. Remember there is nothing that will derail your plans faster then surprises! KEEP EVERYONE UP-TO-DATE and INFORMED!
      Stay tuned for the next session.
            

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December 17th, 2015

12/17/2015

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     Just received copies of Iris's book, " Finding the Treasures Left Along the Trail - My Cherokee Heritage ", and are hopeful it will provide a closer understanding between our two cultures. We are experiencing a period of time where our leaders and the media seems to be intensifying concern and fear about people who are different. I truly believe this will exacerbate relationships not improve them. If we are going to provide an acceptable future for our next generations, we must begin to focus on the similarities we all share and build relationships based on sharing. I never thought I would see the day when an American political party would stand before the entire Nation and state that their leading goal for the next several years was to make the leadership of another American political party a failure. Hard to believe, but I watched the statement presented on national TV with my own eyes. How can we expect various public interests to come together to solve major complex issues?
     With the new year rapidly approaching, I decided I needed to offer some more specifics on how I believe we need to re-design our efforts to bring people together. I have mentioned before that a group of graduate students at MIT did a study in the 1960's on why so few solutions to major complex problems ever get implemented. The study found that no more than 15% of good solutions are ever implemented. It was also found that the recommended solutions were sound and the technical process used to identify these solutions was done properly. The failure was the result of not adequately involving the people or potentially effected interests. 
     Most decision makers, when they can not implement their proposed action, re-double their efforts in the technical process only to experience more failure. To become an implementation genius requires becoming an expert in working with a variety of people and having the wisdom to be able to identify your potentially effected interests. So, step one is to get out from behind the desk and visit with the true decision makers of the various interest groups in your area of influence. If you don't know who these people are, there is no way you will be an effective problem solver. It is your personal responsibility to know and be able to dialog with the true leaders of these interest groups that develops the trust required for you to be a competent and effective decision maker. This assignment can not be delegated!
     In future blogs I will expand on the next steps required for successful implementation of your proposed applications and projects. 















    

 

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December 05th, 2015

12/5/2015

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Well, we are on the count down to Christmas and a new year. I have expressed concerns over the passed year, that the current political process is of major concern. Publicly elected officials are attempting to convince us the government is broken in an attempt to frighten us into electing them to fix things. The fact is the government is us, the people. Some form of government has been a part of every society that has existed on this planet. This has been true because large groups of people can not live together without guidelines and regulations, and individually we are unable to solve major complex issue without pooling our resources. Therefore, the purpose of government is to establish the guardrails that allow us to live together in an acceptable way, and to develop and finance solutions to complex problems and issue which can not resolve by our selves. Our government is not broken, it is the broken political process, politicians, that is standing in the way of success. So I hope 2016 will be the largest turn out of American voters we have ever experienced and that voters will carefully evaluate and select elected representatives that truly go to our National Capitol to accomplish the needs of the American public.
     This week we finally completed my wife, Iris's book entitled " Finding the Treasures Left Along the Trail - My Cherokee Heritage". It is available on Amazon.com. This book presents over 1200 years of ancestry that reaches all the way back to the Battle of Tours and the General of the Frankish Military, Charles " The Hammer" Martel. The book tells of the arrival of a young Englishman to the American continent in 1627 and his involvement with the Shawnee and Cherokee Tribes. You will read stories of Thomas Pasmere Carpenter's family and their significant contributions to Cherokee history and early American history. These stories will provide a very different image of our Native American brothers and sisters from what we were taught in our public schools. This is an exciting journey into family history where two people from very different cultures came together in marriage and contributed, in a very positive way, to the early establishment of our great Nation. 
     I must also disclose that helping my wife research this book, enlightened me about Native American traditional knowledge, and has strongly influenced the concerns and issues I have about our natural environment, forestry, which I have
been writing about in my book and this blog. We have significant concerns about the future of our natural surroundings and what it means for our grandchildren and their children. We are, only now, beginning to realize what our purpose has been, and realize we are finally beginning to scratch the surface. Somehow we can not allow the Traditional Knowledge of our indigenous people to be lost. Our very future depends on rekindling the wisdom of observing, understanding and managing the complexity and detail of Nature!               
        

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