Fossil Creek Watershed
and Riparian Restoration

Participatory Meetings



Northern Arizona University is working to ensure that the public as well as all entities conducting activities at Fossil Creek know what research and monitoring  activities are on-going and planned at Fossil Creek. 

In an effort to do this, NAU has held four stakeholder participatory meetings to date. The first was held on June 1, 2004, and the latest was held on October 26, 2005.  Below are summaries of these meetings with the most recent meeting summarized first:

Our fourth participatory meeting was held on October 26, 2005 at the Southwestern Academy. The Fossil Creek Stewardship Meeting was designed to bring together managers, researchers, environmentalists, tribal leaders, and interested citizens to talk about future management of Fossil Creek, specifically the short- and long-term management, stewardship, and education/outreach needs for Fossil Creek. Below is a summary of the meeting. A complete summary of the meeting can be found in the meeting notes, available to download in Word or PDF form on this page. 

Forty-two people were invited to attend the meeting organized by the NAU Fossil Creek Ecosystem Studies Group. Attendees were invited to participate in a discussion of the short- (1-3 years) and long-term needs for Fossil Creek. We asked them to think about three questions we would discuss at the meeting:

1. What are the short- and long-term management needs for Fossil Creek? Management in this context has to do with actions by agencies responsible for managing Fossil Creek and its resources.

2. What are the short- and long-term stewardship needs for Fossil Creek? Stewardship has to do with broadly defined actions and commitments to care for and protect Fossil Creek that include individuals and communities.

3. What are the short- and long-term education and outreach needs for Fossil Creek?

Twenty-four people participated in the meeting. We used a facilitated nominal group process to identify and rank responses to the questions. We broke participants into three groups with each having a mix of researchers and managers from the various land and wildlife management agencies, non-profit group members, tribal leaders, and interested citizens. Each group included a facilitator and a recorder.

Notable Highlights

Short-Term Management Needs:
• recreation management to enhance experiences and reduce impacts
• collaborative, interagency management and monitoring
• protection of native fish (e.g., crayfish control, enforcing regulations, developing a monitoring plan)

Long-Term Management Needs:
• maintain native fisheries (control of crayfish, non-natives)
• management of recreation infrastructure, including roads, trails, motorized access
• acquiring funding and additional human resources
• management presence/law enforcement

Short-Term Stewardship Needs:
• formation of a stewardship group – Friends of Fossil Creek
• form relationships with other existing stewardship groups
• collaborative planning
• keep the area clean
• provide stewardship information to users

Long-Term Stewardship Needs:
• Friends of Fossil Creek and agency interaction
• keep the area clean
• consider user fees
• law enforcement
• increase volunteerism (e.g., in local communities, school groups)

Short-Term Education/Outreach Needs:
• On-site information sharing targeting users
• media – kiosks, on-site hosts, displays
• topics – Leave No Trace, stewardship, Fossil Creek story, preserving native fish
• Off-site information sharing – schools, communities, seek volunteers
• Share information within and among agencies

Long-Term Education/Outreach Needs:
• education of visitors and locals about stewardship, ethics, Leave No Trace
• education on native fish to prevent reintroduction of non-natives
• gathering and sharing information on Fossil Creek research and management with the public via symposia, liaison, surveys

View the October 26, 2005 meeting notes:
Word document (793 KB)
PDF (146 KB)

Our third participatory meeting was held on April 14, 2005 in Camp Verde, Arizona.  This meeting was geared toward providing updates to, and soliciting feedback from, conservation groups and tribes.  Participants included representatives from the Yavapai Apache Tribe, Friends of Arizona Rivers, the Sierra Club, Northern Arizona Audubon, and several individuals with long-term involvement in the restoration of Fossil Creek.  At the two-hour meeting, NAU provided an overview of research and inventory at Fossil Creek and an overview of NAU's Stream Ecology and Restoration Group's research at Fossil Creek (titled "Fixing Broken Ecosystems").  The group discussed the research and monitoring taking place at Fossil Creek, and management issues associated with the predicted increase in recreational use of the area.

View the April 14, 2005 meeting notes:
Word document (36.5 KB)
PDF (39.2 KB)

View the slide show presentations: Please note that these are large PDF files and will take some time to download if you have a dial-up connection.

Fossil Creek Overview Slide Show (Charles Schlinger, NAU) PDF (5.38 MB)

Fixing Broken Ecosystems Slide Show (Jane Marks, NAU) PDF (7.27 MB)
 

Our second set of participatory meetings were held on October 29 and 30, 2004 in Pine and Camp Verde, Arizona. These open houses were geared toward providing information to the public about on-going and up-coming research, fish restoration, and decommissioning activities at Fossil Creek.  Information was provided from 5 NAU research programs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and APS.  Nearly 50 members of the public attended these two open houses.

The first participatory meeting was held on June 1, 2004 and invitees were limited to agencies and entities directly involved in on-going work at Fossil Creek.  Participants included the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NAU, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, APS, and Northern Arizona Audubon Society.

View the June 1, 2004 meeting notes:
Word document (101 KB)
PDF (95 KB)

Overview
Baseline Conditions
Long-Term Plan
Facility Decommissioning
Management Recommendations
Fossil Creek Info
Native Fish Restoration
Research
Photos
Links