Perspective of a Stakeholder & 4 Tours
Submitted by Allie Floyd on Wed, 2017-07-12 00:00
What another great, adventure packed day! Throughout the day, we ended up doing 4 different tours and I am exhausted, so I am sorry if my thoughts are a bit more scrambled then normal. Today we started off at the bird observatory, then went to the Suez clean drinking water plant, then over to the Roosevelt Elementary gardens for a pollination lesson & activity, then finally ALL over Boise to learn about Cottonwood Creek. We started up at the path that leads to Robbie Creek, followed in back down through the North End, saw the original flumes built in the 1800s (extremely impressive that they still work today), and ended at Julia Davis park. What a day!!!
Based on what we have learned the last few days and today, I want to answer a question that involves picking one stakeholder and imagining you are in their shoes. If you were that stakeholder, what issues would be most important regarding water usage? And how could you work with the other stakeholders to achieve your goals? The options of stakeholders are: Plants/wildlife, recreationalists, farmer, Boise citizen, dam operator, or a climate scientist. I have chosen the point of view from a farmer because they supply not only Idaho, but many other states with the fresh produce and meats that we eat every single day. In my mind, they have one of THE most important jobs, if not the most important among stakeholders. One issue I would foresee as a farmer that I would want resolved could be getting even water distribution throughout all your land so that the crops (or animals if you are a dairy farmer) are supplied with the resources they need that are vital for survival. Also, I would be very upset to see neighboring farms receiving surplus amounts of water either for the same price or lower prices. In working together with all of the additional stakeholders, the key would be willing to compromise as long as everyone's best interests are still met. It would be difficult having so many parties involved in that process and finding common ground to agree upon. I believe that if each stakeholder was maintaining their operation with average to high success rates, very little changes should be made. But if one or even a few stakeholders were having issues with their water supply, everyone else involved in the process should be selected based on having an open mind and be willing to compromise. Maybe one stakeholder could use a bit less water to help out another stakeholder that's business is suffering (at least until they got back on their feet). But that's in an ideal world right?
Since I am not a farmer, I'm not sure if these are specifically relevant issues or if these are issues that have happened in the past and are now resolved. If any digi-learners are farmers or have experience with farming out there, I would love some input! In closing here, I want to put out the same question because this scenery intrigues me. If you had to choose to be one of the stakeholders from the list above, who would you be and what issues would be most important to you regarding water use? How can you work together with other stakeholders to achieve your goals?
I so look forward to reading your responses and seeing what you have to say if you were in this situation! I will post the pictures I got today to the gallery tomorrow since I've run short on time. Have a great night!!! :)
Comments
Plants/Wildlife
Allie,
It sounds like you guys had a crazy busy day! You posed an interesting question that really got me thinking. If I were to look at the issue of water usage from the viewpoint of another stakeholder, I would choose plants and wildlife. You mentioned that even water distribution would be the most important issue to you if you were a farmer and I would agree, to some extent, that water distrubtion would be the most important for plants and wildlife as well. Plants grow where they grow for a reason, animals live where they live for a reason. Without water to sustain their lives, plants would probably die and wildlife would either have to migrate to another area or die as well. Forcing wildlife to move from their natural habitats in order to find water could be dangerous too.
It does sound like you had a
It does sound like you had a busy day. I would be interested in doing the hike up Robie Creek and viewing the original flumes. What a great experience you are having. I like your question and I think it would be a great one to pose to students at the end of a unit about water and water management. Students could each take a stakeholder perspective and make a poster or other visual representation about water usage from their perspective. I think students would see a lot of the connections between stakeholders and many common themes.
I also want to take the perspective of plant and wildlife. I believe by monitoring the success of plants and wildlife in our area we can have a nice assessment of the health of our watershed. If native plants are thriving we can see that their needs are met and we are doing our job managing the watershed effectively. Plants are the base of many foodwebs, so their health then directly effects the health of other life forms. If we see that our plants are not thriving it would give humans a starting place to see what's going wrong and how we can better manage our watershed. I think when we consider the health of plants and wildlife we then create a ripple effect amongst other stakeholders.
Thank you both!!!
Thank you both so much for your comments! If you haven't been to these areas, I HIGHLY recommend it. So much history here that I didn't know and I'm a local of the area!