Assess Your Resources
What are Your Community's Valuable Resources?
All communities have treasured places - historic buildings, gathering spots, old street trees. But all communities also depend on a network of natural resources that protect water quality, provide for recreation, support fishing and wildlife and maintain community health and character. What's the first step in ensuring these resources are maintained? Determining what's there and what's important to protect.
Some communities make conscious choices about their valuable resources. How do they do it and what is the result? Here are some examples, and how NEMO can help.
A Community's Story
Cacapon & Lost Rivers, WV - Identifying Important Resource Lands
How NEMO Can Help
Assessing or inventorying your community's resources can take place through many routes:
- As a separate resource assessment
- As part of a regular planning cycle, like an update of a comprehensive plan
- As part of a watershed management planning process
- As a follow-up to forum focusing on a community's heritage
NEMO technical assistance staff can help communities: plan a resource assessment process, access natural resource expertise, and suggest strategies for involving stakeholders. The nature and timing of assistance are tailored to a community's need, and coordinated with appropriate NEMO presentations, workshops and funding assistance from existing grant programs.