This will be my final journal entry, as the semester is coming towards a conclusion and I am preparing to wrap up my entire internship project. All in all I would say that my experience with the Council was a very positive one. Overall I enjoyed doing this mini internship although it did present several difficulties. To start, the time I spent in the field with Doug was physically demanding. Walking around mountains is not something that I am designed for, at least not at the break neck speeds of someone who is in good physical shape. Second, scheduling time to meet with Doug was nearly impossible. I was only available to work with him one or two days a week. Doug is very busy throughout the week so planning for us to meet for a day was a challenge and an exercise in time management. The first day Doug and I got together I said th at I would like to finish up all my hours by Thanksgiving, the calendar was leaning more towards Christmas than Thanksgiving by the time I finishedbut that just stands to prove how difficult it was to schedule time.
I do have a few regrets in my time with the Resource Council. I never got a chance to do any field work in South County, and was relegated to stay around the North Adams area, where Doug actually needed my services. I didn’t get to spend as much time doing physical labor for the Resource Council as I would have liked to either, which is unfortunate because my ability to cut trails, etc. definitely exceeds my abilities with a compass.
; While my internship did not afford me with a chance to put forward what I exceed at in terms of work, I did learn quite about working for a Conservation organization that a text book never could have taught me. While Holden’s writings described the types of major issues that surrounded conservation throughout the 20th ce ntury, it could not adequate describe the minor nuances of conservation that I observed through the Council. Text books can teach students the various political forces that went into the battle for Hetchy Hetch Dam, but cannot give meaning to the battles between an organization and a neighboring land owner over one foot of land. Obviously I learned things through my internship about conservation, like mapping skills, how to mark boundaries, what conservation restrictions are and general things like facts about G.I.S. (Geographic Information Systems), it was the minor details about the day to day operation of the Council that made this an eye opening experience.
All in all this was great experience and believe it or not, my work with the Resource Council will not be ending with the finish of this internship. I will continue to help Doug on the Council properties in the great North Adams area. It is fun work and I enjoy the people that I work with, that makes continuing with this organiz ation until graduation and easy choice for me.
Monday, December 8, 2008
BNRC Old office, new technology
To finish up my requirement for my internship with the Berkshire Natural Resource Council, I finally made the big trip to Pittsfield to see the office and get a feel for what Doug Bruce does when he isn’t traversing mountains. To paint an accurate picture of the Resource Council office one must understand that it is in a cluttered office above Patrick’s Pub on a busy street in Pittsfield. One would not assume that an office that handles as much land in Berkshire County as the Resource Council does would be confined to such a small space, but it truly is.
I was fortunate enough to meet Tad Ames today, the President of the Resource Council and Narain Schroeder, the Director of Land Conservation for the agency. I had read about these two gentlemen on the Resource Council’s Website and knew that they were both well educated men who worked at the Council because they loved the outdoors. What I learned today that the website could have never taught me, is what nice people they were. In the brief exchange I had with these gentlemen, I was instantly impressed by their enthusiasm. Mr. Ames thanked me for being involved in the agency when I arrived and again when I left. I can honestly say that the Berkshire Natural Resource Council, aside from owning some pretty property, are very friendly people.
Focusing now on the office itself, as I mentioned before it is rather small, but well organized. The Resource Council has a tremendous amount of paper work that all needs to be kept in large, fire safe filing cabinets. What kind of paper work one may ask? For each piece of property the Resource Council owns, they have to keep a portfolio with various pieces of documentation. In these portfolios, which they have to keep so things like the government can inspect them, they have maps charting the type of habitat each property holds. Maps that indicate where the boundary markers are, maps that indicate what types of soil are found where on each property and finally maps that indicate where various type of habitat controls need to be or have been implemented on the land. The Council owns hundreds of parcels of lands all across Berkshire county and with each parcel requiring its own large folder, that creates a lot of documents that need to be organized. In addition to the paper work within the office, Doug stated that by law they are required to keep back ups of each file and he estimated that they have at least five copies of each individual file stored in various locations around the Pittsfield area.
What does the Berkshire Natural Resource Council office tell us about the agency? A good bit. For starters, the very atmosphere of the agency is enjoyable, and from that one can discern that the people who work there are all around good folks. What does the office tell us about conservation? The very idea that every single minute detail is so meticulously documented shows us that conservation is more than cutting trees and being outdoorsy. Conservation is a large tangle of paper work and legal matters. The detail and technology involved in mapping a parcel of land show us how evolved conservationist has become. People like Teddy Roosevelt were drawn to “Conservation” in part because of the unknown that the great outdoors represented. Modern conservations don’t deal with the unknowns, their GPS system will not allow them to. These systems do make it easier however, for a guy staring at a computer in Pittsfield to plan his day marking boundaries in North Adams weeks later.
I was fortunate enough to meet Tad Ames today, the President of the Resource Council and Narain Schroeder, the Director of Land Conservation for the agency. I had read about these two gentlemen on the Resource Council’s Website and knew that they were both well educated men who worked at the Council because they loved the outdoors. What I learned today that the website could have never taught me, is what nice people they were. In the brief exchange I had with these gentlemen, I was instantly impressed by their enthusiasm. Mr. Ames thanked me for being involved in the agency when I arrived and again when I left. I can honestly say that the Berkshire Natural Resource Council, aside from owning some pretty property, are very friendly people.
Focusing now on the office itself, as I mentioned before it is rather small, but well organized. The Resource Council has a tremendous amount of paper work that all needs to be kept in large, fire safe filing cabinets. What kind of paper work one may ask? For each piece of property the Resource Council owns, they have to keep a portfolio with various pieces of documentation. In these portfolios, which they have to keep so things like the government can inspect them, they have maps charting the type of habitat each property holds. Maps that indicate where the boundary markers are, maps that indicate what types of soil are found where on each property and finally maps that indicate where various type of habitat controls need to be or have been implemented on the land. The Council owns hundreds of parcels of lands all across Berkshire county and with each parcel requiring its own large folder, that creates a lot of documents that need to be organized. In addition to the paper work within the office, Doug stated that by law they are required to keep back ups of each file and he estimated that they have at least five copies of each individual file stored in various locations around the Pittsfield area.
What does the Berkshire Natural Resource Council office tell us about the agency? A good bit. For starters, the very atmosphere of the agency is enjoyable, and from that one can discern that the people who work there are all around good folks. What does the office tell us about conservation? The very idea that every single minute detail is so meticulously documented shows us that conservation is more than cutting trees and being outdoorsy. Conservation is a large tangle of paper work and legal matters. The detail and technology involved in mapping a parcel of land show us how evolved conservationist has become. People like Teddy Roosevelt were drawn to “Conservation” in part because of the unknown that the great outdoors represented. Modern conservations don’t deal with the unknowns, their GPS system will not allow them to. These systems do make it easier however, for a guy staring at a computer in Pittsfield to plan his day marking boundaries in North Adams weeks later.
Oddities in Conservation
On a recent day of being manly and clearing paths and wandering around the woods sweaty and exhausted, I had a chance to have a very interesting conversation with Mr. Doug Bruce, the Stewardship Manager at the Council. Doug told me about a parcel of land the Resource Council recently purchased the conservation restrictions on in South County. It is a lovely farm land with lots of potential, Doug only spoke of one minor downside; he is now in charge of the upkeep of the two hundred year old farm house on the property, which still has a tenant in it. The provision of the CR Doug explained, is that the Council gets the land, but the elderly lady living there can remain. This is fine and all but Doug has now become a slum lord of sorts, trying to keep up on the repairs of the failing house.
Another oddity about my time with Doug is that we rarely seem to be productive. Whether it’s a minor detail like a chain saw malfunction, or an inability to find a surveyor’s pin (locating where the boundary we would be trying to paint actually is) Doug and I have yet to have what he considered a really productive day. Doug often dismisses this as part of the territory of his job, explaining that when you’re paid to wander in the woods and look for small pieces of rebar on the forest floor, your success rate wont be that high. While these usual interferences have come to be expected by me when I set out with Doug, I couldn’t help but be amused by his most recently tale of woe as to why we could not paint boundaries. It seems the neighbor of the land that the Council holds the conservation restriction on, had accused the Council of moving the surveyor pins two feet onto his property. This seems rather ludicrous for multiple reasons to me. To start, it would be highly illegal for the Council to move pins set by a surveyor. Next, what would two extra feet of property gain the Council when they own a good chunk of Berkshire County already.
While all of the aforementioned events led to a lack of great productivity by the Council, Doug did have some great news, a mountain biking group out of South County had recently agreed to donate the time and energy into clearing new trails for the Council. This is a great thing for the Council, as it saves time and money for them, two commodities that are very valuable in this tight fiscal time for the small organization. Donations of work aside, Doug pointed out that by getting more people involved in the Council, they are going to getting more people to visit their lands as well (the group should spread awareness of the trails etc.). Just like the National Park system in the early 20th century, the Resource Council strives to draw visitors to their land and fund themselves, while trying to maintain a healthy ecological place that visitors and wildlife can enjoy.
Another oddity about my time with Doug is that we rarely seem to be productive. Whether it’s a minor detail like a chain saw malfunction, or an inability to find a surveyor’s pin (locating where the boundary we would be trying to paint actually is) Doug and I have yet to have what he considered a really productive day. Doug often dismisses this as part of the territory of his job, explaining that when you’re paid to wander in the woods and look for small pieces of rebar on the forest floor, your success rate wont be that high. While these usual interferences have come to be expected by me when I set out with Doug, I couldn’t help but be amused by his most recently tale of woe as to why we could not paint boundaries. It seems the neighbor of the land that the Council holds the conservation restriction on, had accused the Council of moving the surveyor pins two feet onto his property. This seems rather ludicrous for multiple reasons to me. To start, it would be highly illegal for the Council to move pins set by a surveyor. Next, what would two extra feet of property gain the Council when they own a good chunk of Berkshire County already.
While all of the aforementioned events led to a lack of great productivity by the Council, Doug did have some great news, a mountain biking group out of South County had recently agreed to donate the time and energy into clearing new trails for the Council. This is a great thing for the Council, as it saves time and money for them, two commodities that are very valuable in this tight fiscal time for the small organization. Donations of work aside, Doug pointed out that by getting more people involved in the Council, they are going to getting more people to visit their lands as well (the group should spread awareness of the trails etc.). Just like the National Park system in the early 20th century, the Resource Council strives to draw visitors to their land and fund themselves, while trying to maintain a healthy ecological place that visitors and wildlife can enjoy.
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