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“Kickapoo Community Sanctuary”:
Keeping Our Rural Past While Stepping Into the Future
Creating an International Model
(5/12/08)Community Conservation, 50542 One Quiet Lane, Gays Mills, WI 54631,www.communityconservation.orgRobert H. Horwich, Jennifer Nelson, James Poehling, Joe Swanson, Rosanne Boyett, JulieeWendland, Terry Beck, Gereon Welhouse, Joe Rising, Sylvia Attleson, Brian Walker andMargaret Thielke
“Sustainable development must mimic the process of living, biological systems…
The purpose of sustainable development is permanence
 – 
to create and maintain asocial, economic and natural environment for a desirable quality of life, over time, indefinitely, forever. Non-human communities are designed by nature for  permanence. They ar 
e naturally productive and regenerative…. The principles for permanence are ecological, social and economic integrity.”
 
 John Ikerd; “Principle
-
based planning for a sustainable community”
 
Summary -Vision of a Community Sanctuary
While most of us, living in the Kickapoo Valley, appreciate its beauty, we may not knowthat its biodiversity ranks with that of many protected areas. Essentially we are living in a
culturally and environmentally unique ―park‖ where we want to continue to live. As
contemporary pressures such as industrialized farming, loss of family farms, sprawl, andfragmentation threaten the agrarian nature of the community as well as the integrity of ournatural areas, we must protect this valuable region where we live. Coordination of current localstewardship organizations with local governance will provide a cohesive group to function as awatershed-wide support group for voluntary protection of the land and people. A number of voluntary tools, many of which are being tried already on a limited basis, are proposed toenhance protection of the Kickapoo watershed. The Natural Step training along with land useplanning will support and encourage new models of sustainable farming, economic development,alternative energy systems and waste management practices. Using voluntary conservationeasements and private land use plans will encourage landowner participation in saving ournatural areas. Community monitoring and research will measure the progress of protection of the Kickapoo watershed to maintain its beauty, its biological integrity while maintaining ourrural lifestyle. A community sanctuary would promote family farms, sustainable farming,
 
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preservation of natural areas, and economic development through land use planning.
 Methods
 
Natural Step for Towns/Townships
 
 – 
The Natural Step method trains people to look atplanning that encourages sustainable and low impact development and the preservation of naturalareas. Local governments can use it for visioning and land use planning to encouragessustainable farming, watershed protection and strengthening the economy from the grass-rootsup.
Private Land Use Plans as Buffer Zones
 
 – 
Private lands can be used as buffers surroundingnatural areas to discourage environmentally destructive development and agriculture.Landowners can be educated in sustainable systems and the local natural heritage. An initialproject in the lower watershed will catalog biodiversity and create land use plans for privatelands. Future surveys will measure the effectiveness of the conservation practices. Landownersand farmers will be brought together to develop sustainable farming and other conservationpractices. If successful, this model will be duplicated in other parts of the watershed.
Education and Encouraging Sustainable Systems
 
 – 
Various governmental and environmentalorganizations already have education programs in place which can help educate the communityon alternative and sustainable farming methods with low-impact on the natural resources.
Land Use Plans and Regional Planning
 
 – 
Comprehensive land use planning developed bywatershed townships can be coordinated for regional and private land use planning.
Economic Development
 
 – 
Development of eco-tourism, ag-tourism and low-impact industry,that is already beginning, would be encouraged.
Conservation Easements
 
 – 
Voluntary easements which limit some kinds of development wouldbe encouraged.
Monitoring Research
 
 – 
Community and other resource monitoring, including land, water,biodiversity, soil and farmland would be expanded for maintaining conservation management.
Waste management
- The guiding principles for waste management can be summarized as
replace
,
recycle, reduce
and
remove
. Individuals and local governments will encouraged tofollow these guidelines to manage waste.
Alternative Energy
 
 – 
Energy systems that do not impact the local natural resources would beencouraged.
Transportation
- Support of local food, fuel and goods production wherever possible wouldreduce our reliance and vulnerability to changes in oil prices and availability.Establish working relationships with partner organizations
 – 
All valley-wide organizations areinvited to join this proposal.
 
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I. Introduction
As the world’s population steadily increases and as the global climate changes, our natural
resources become more threatened and valuable. Here, in Wisconsin, we still have an abundanceof resources, but other areas of the world are seeing their resources fast depleting. The same canhappen to us. Without proper care of the resources necessary to sustain life, future generationswill not enjoy the quality of life we have today. Just as clear
 — 
our government cannot protectour resources without our help, and indeed, sometimes may need our leadership.This understanding has come to Community Conservation (CC) over the past 25 years aswe developed a flexible formula for catalyzing communities to protect their natural areas. Webegan in Belize, where now over a dozen communities co-manage protected areas with thegovernment of Belize, which has incorporated policies of community co-management. CC thencarried this work to Assam, India to effect similar regional change despite a complex politicalsituation of militants, illegal log smuggling, and ethnic violence. The entire region is now beingprotected by seven community organizations. In Wisconsin, CC has helped to catalyze fivecommunity conservation projects with resulting community managing groups. This flexibleformula is now being proposed to pursue regional change within the Kickapoo Valley.The Kickapoo Valley is now facing three major challenges to its natural resources: 1) large scale,industrialized agriculture that threatens to pollute the surface and ground waters of the KickapooValley and destroy the community fabric of the townships and villages, 2) reduced land parcelsize resulting in fragmentation and reduction of the natural and farming communities, 3) globalclimate change that is likely to result in severe economic, social, and biological changes (asevidenced by the floods of August 2007).Positive conservation changes have been occurring within the Kickapoo Valley over thepast 20 years as individual projects or institutions have been created. While successful, thesehave failed to realize the full potential for regional change. In the late 1970s, Kickapoo ValleyAssociation
’s
(KVA) River, History, and Energy projects, based in Viola, brought peopletogether valley-wide with a focus on the Kickapoo as the connecting thread to all our lives. Yetthat momentum was not maintained. However, due to the synergy created by these localinstitutions, the time is now right to consider uniting them to initiate regional change to protectour Kickapoo River Valley.As the valley villages, townships and residents consider their land use plans a generalconsensus indicates that residents want to retain the traditional values of the area while pursuingdevelopment that will retain its natural quality (for interesting evidence of this, see the
―
Kickapoo Conversations
‖ co
nducted by Valley Stewardship Network in 2003). The sproutingof local institutions concerned with such pursuits strengthens this consensus. These include theValley Stewardship Network, the Coulee Region Organic Produce Pool, the DriftlessStewardship Initiative, the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, the Prairie Enthusiasts, the Kickapoo
Woods Cooperative, the West Fork Sportsman’s Club, Crawford Stewardship Project and the
resurgence of the Kickapoo Valley Association, as well as others. Their common goals indicatethat the time is right to effect regional change at a grass roots level. This will require bringingtogether committed residents to preserve the natural areas and quality of life in the KickapooValley while pursuing changes that will maintain this natural quality.
II. Vision of a Community Sanctuary
If we listen to the survey results of landowners in the Kickapoo townships the visions are
very similar. Landowners within the Kickapoo Valley want the area to ―remain the same‖: they
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