A very important issue facing the community forest during the start-up phase has been gaining the trust of the community in our ability to manage the forest in such a way that genuinely protects community values, particularly water. Many people in the Creston valley were very concerned about logging in the community watershed and could only envision industrial practices, primarily clearcutting. We had our work cut out to show that things could be done very differently.
Our approach has been to quietly demonstrate our philosophy on the land. Rather than raising public expectations through a "media campaign", we opted for "building trust through performance". We simply have consistently demonstrated a respective approach to other values by utilizing a variety of appropriate silvicultural systems and harvesting methods that have protected or enhanced water, wildlife habitat, views and recreation. We prefer to walk people through our philosophy instead of simply talking about it.
This has proven to be a very effective strategy in building trust. It's not a new concept by any means; and most people operate this way in their dealings with family, friends and other important endeavors. Over the past five years we have gone from being suspect to being trusted. We now enjoy a significant degree of support from environmental groups, waters users and the community in general.