Project Summary

Recreation is an important part of our society, including Jericho Research Forest and the Jericho community. It plays an important role of connecting land and people, building ecological literacy. With many changes planned for the UVM property, it is important to examine how the adjacent community will be affected. Community is an important asset steeped in tradition. UVM needs to support the local community or its integrity will be sacrificed. What I did, with limited resources, was take a look at this dynamic to see where and how recreation fits into the Jericho Research Forest equation.

 

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Goals

Assessing the Jericho community’s attitudes, feelings and interactions with the forest is the primary goal of this study. Social frameworks are essential for defining boundaries for management.

 

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Strategies

After research, using documents and interviews, I compiled a list of areas that needed focus. I then designed a mail survey for adjacent landowners. The next step was to collect, organize, summarize, analyze, and interpret the data. I approached this with information from statistical and recreation management standpoints.

 

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Measurements of Success

Documenting the process and feelings is important to making sure goals are met. Review of the final report will yield information from the study, which can be used to assess how effectively fulfilled the goals are. The intangible characteristic of social parameters makes concrete summaries difficult.

 

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Survey & Results

Download the survey [PDF]