Category: Practicum

Part of the vital challenge presented by ecosystem camping is to get past a model where we primarily consume resources created by others, but rather where we share resources that we produce.  To make it more complex, our producer-created system must be able to accommodate the constant flow of people through camp, manage apprenticeship, and encouraging and respecting leadership, all in a way that is easy and comfortable.  This comfort is supported by a system of stories, rituals and taboos.

Restoration camping is not an entertainment business.  It is more like a social club.  Because the club lives together on the land, our stories, rituals and taboos are unique to this now unusual context.  The underlying guild and camp institutions are focused on setting the table: arranging land access, gathering and loaning tools and technologies, maintaining an information architecture, and cultivating membership.  The guild members must create the feast.

At first it will be a pretty rudimentary feast.  But the purpose of restoration camping is to cultivate a community of exceptional capabilities.  This cultivation of individual capability is perhaps our most important resource.

cultivation of individual capability is perhaps our most important resource

The camp is a common resources, strategically situated within the watershed, which is also a common resource.  The camp, just like the watershed, is divided into a set of systems.  Management of the commons depends on shared stories and rituals and taboos around these systems.  These elements of culture are established by a camp team.  When you visit a new camp as a guild member, your obligation is to learn and understand the systems and their stewardship, based on the stories, rituals and taboos of a camp.  These traditions need to be simple, and well suited to the unusual context of living on the land and doing restoration projects.

• Camp Team – a circle of guild members controls the legal institution that is responsible for the operation of the camp.  That team is responsible for making sure that all systems are well defined and under stewardship.  Every camp has an up-to-date bulletin board that organizes systems, presents maps and land access agreements, and roles. All camps are private, and your access and residence at camp depends on the consent of the camp team.  You let the camp team know when you arrive, and when you depart.

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  Camp Landscape – the landscape around the camp is cultivated for beauty, access, privacy, production of wild and semi-wild foods, plant stock for restoration, and building materials.  All these functions are provided by a set of living systems, and someone at camp is responsible for these systems.  This is our living capital.  Generally people stay on a set of common areas, trails and paths, until they get some education in the vegetation systems.  All members are responsible for gently but clearly minding children in production areas, while other areas are set aside for unfettered exploration.

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  Food System – restoration camps have a mobile kitchen and hearth system, with shared kit for preparing and cooking food.  In our ecosystem, wood burning is the principle energy source so we design and use high-draft systems for maximizing combustion, complemented by biogas or solar cookery where feasible.  The camp steward maintains a shared larder of staples, and when it makes sense, contracts with local farmers for a supply of produce.  When you sign up to go camping you join a cooking groups that fits your diet.  Members of the guild accept responsibility for learning about and maintaining the food system, and there is usually some education for new campers.  The camp does not cook for you or control what you cook, or who you cook and eat with.

• Host Lands – the camp is located within a set of legal parcels.  The camp team establishes terms and conditions for land access, described by a set of maps, rituals and taboos.
• Water Supply – the camp team provides a water supply.  That water supply may be potable or non-potable.  Each camper is then responsible for using that water supply appropriately, both within their self-organized cooking group, and for their personal water consumption.  The character of the water supply is made clear, and the camp team may make suggestions for purification as necessary. Beaver landscapes, coho salmon habitat, and stormwater infiltration are likely to be important focus areas for community-based watershed management.
• Projects – A member of the guild takes leadership of each project that is then shared with the camp team.  Campers agree to participate in projects as part of their stay – somewhere around four hours of project work a day.  Any camper can propose a project to the camp team and then seek support from campers.  The camp team can ask for members to come help on needed projects.  Projects are basically of two kinds:  camp tending and watershed restoration.  We try to design camp systems well, so that we can spend a maximum of project time on watershed restoration.  Generally projects are scheduled the day before through a discussion among the camp team and project leads, with work in the cool morning after breakfast.  Being a project lead requires education in the risk management system.
• Education – Any member of the guild can make an offering to share knowledge, or request knowledge about either the camp systems or watershed restoration.  In some cases education and projects go together.  To work on a project or use a system, you may need to get some education.  Generally education happens in the afternoon and evening.  There are a number of standard trainings necessary for camp participation.  These are given on the first evenings of your first visit.  Some camps may revolve around special education programs where campers pay for the educator.

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  Risk Management – We have a shared system to ensure that everyone is responsible for themselves, has all the knowledge and skills necessary to be responsible and safe, and to respond to an emergency.  The landowner only provides access, and is not responsible for our conduct or safety.  The camp team is a legal entity that provides a site where members of our  club can reside, and works with project leads to ensure each project meets guild standards for safety and organization.  Each camper is either on-project or off-project, and the responsibility for safety on-project is clearly defined for each project as sponsored either by the guild, by a third party contractor, or watershed partner.

Ultimately becoming a member of the guild, and a restoration camper is about making a pledge to participate in a community.  The pledge is universal to all camps and might look something like this:

The Ecosystem Guild Pledge (First Draft)

1. UNDERSTAND PURPOSE – I go restoration camping, to restore ecosystems, and increase the capabilities of the guild by cultivating knowledge, developing and teaching skills, and caring for the bodies, hearts, and minds of my fellow campers.  I understand that as a member of the guild I am personally responsible for the camp experience.
2. KNOW SYSTEMS – When I arrive at camp I will assess the systems of the camp, and find roles by which my skills will make the camp stronger in its function.  Before using or tending a system, I will consult with the steward of the system and honor their leadership by making sure to understand and adhere to any rituals or taboos involved in the management of the system.  I recognize that the proper use of some systems may require education and I will not use systems where the camp team has decided that education is necessary for proper use.
3. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY – I am responsible for learning how to master and care for every tool and system I use.  When I pick up a tool or use a system, I am assuming responsibility for the quality, condition, and function of work, for the well-being of those around me, and for my own safety.
4. RESPECT THE HOST – I will honor the boundaries and agreement with the landowner host, and will explore those lands following the specific rituals and taboos defined in the agreement between the camp team and the land owner.  I am personally responsible for understanding those agreements.
5. HONOR LEADERSHIP – I will honor the intuition and judgement of those who  have accepted responsibility for any part of a camp system, and encourage and support the unique learning and development that comes from having authority over a system.  I will ask to join in leadership, and will collaborate with those that have come to camp before.
6. DEMONSTRATE LEADERSHIP – For the parts of the camp system that I have accepted responsibility I will actively cultivate the continuous improvement of that system, by asking my fellow campers for advice and feedback.  The function of my leadership is to support future leaders by developing and documenting better systems, and then passing them on.  I will look for opportunities to share and cultivate leadership in others, and will work to bring strangers into groups and projects, while honoring and acting on my intuition and judgement.
7. SHARE IDENTITY – I am not anonymous.  I will introduce myself to other guild members, and will share my full and true name with any member of the guild at any time requested.  I will wear some kind of name tag as much as possible.  All guild members have registered with a camp team and the guild.  If a non-guild member is at camp, I will let the camp team know.
8. RESOLVE PROBLEMS – If I find myself in conflict or feeling unsafe in any way, I will immediately talk to two members of the camp team about my concerns in private, so that we can fully focus on my concerns.  The camp team is always available to address concerns about conflict or safety.  If my concerns around conflict or safety are not satisfied by working with the camp team, I will leave the camp, and report my experience in detail to guild leadership.

If we want ecosystem restoration and stewardship based on honor and reciprocity we need to develop new kinds of institutions that support that work. If we don’t clearly define our objectives, we’ll likely find ourselves back on the worn path, in a hierarchical non-profit corporation paying people to work—it is what we are used do doing.  Restoration Camping is a strategy for voluntary collaboration that lives parallel to the marketplace.  We don’t replace our other institutions, but we create a watershed home for us to gather, focus, and work.  This is a design challenge.  Here are principles that could inform this design:

1. We efficiently restore ecosystem capital through direct action.  Ecosystems are changed with work.  Our system must apply a maximum of effort on-the-ground.  We live in the ecosystem we are restoring, and achieve the greatest change with the least effort by applying systems thinking. We  know we are successful through project extent and observing the change in vegetation, biodiversity, and moisture over an increasing area.
2. Our system thrives on membership dues and low nightly fees. We can operate and grow a camp without grants or sponsors, but we pursue grants to go faster. We limit expenses by leveraging knowledge, labor and goodwill. We  know we are successful by our ability to produce a camp with minimal money, and through long range cash flow planning and accounting.
3. We build personal relationships. The visible work of the camp community inspires stewardship. Each guild-member is a node of our network.  We embrace watershed residents as colleagues and invite them to contribute. We know we are successful through private land access, and material support for restoration.
4. All participants are nourished. Guild membership gives us meaningful experiences and skills, friendships, a mission larger than ourselves aligned with our values and vision, networks of ideas and information, and access to raw natural resources. We know we are successful through the feedback of guild-members, and our increasing numbers.
5. Camp residence demonstrates regenerative living. The camping lifestyle produces much and consumes little.  We develop elegant technologies that create comfort and ease. We support watershed producers.  Beneficial residency is part of the project and the design challenge. We know we are successful through resource audits, and adoption of our technologies outside of camp.
6. Information is cycled and retained. In order to be creative, we design habits and leverage self-organizing open-source technologies to store and find information rapidly and efficiently. This involves a custom content management system with adaptable work flows, labor saving rituals, and a system for constant evaluation and adaptation. We’ll know we’re successful by the ease with which new members participate in information exchange and management.
7. Different perspectives on the ecosystem are encouraged, tested, and integrated. Our goal is to reintegrate a culture of ecosystem stewardship. We’ll attract preservationists and producers, vegans and hunters, luddites and technologists. We create ecosystems that provide for human need, and we judge production in an ecological context. We teach and demand deeply respectful conduct toward each other and reject dogmatic thinking. We know we are successful by the thought diversity of our membership and the resulting innovation.
8. Our model is self-replicating. Membership grows, camps overfill, so members find new hosts and build more camps. Our systems, rituals, technologies, strategies and tactics are modular and rapidly deployed in new locations. We know we are successful by observing the cost and time for new camps to become fully functioning.
9. Leadership is cultivated in each individual. Concentrated leadership is intertwined with concentration of power, control of information, divestment of personal responsibility, and buying stewardship. Each guild-member is a force of creation. Teams emerge based on shared vision and passion. We use clear consent-based social rituals to listen to each individual and delegate responsibility. We know we are successful by the number of different guild members running projects at each camp.

Reciprocity is the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit, whereas a gift is a thing given willingly to someone without payment.  Stewardship is a social contract that exists beyond currency. I remember a mentor who once suggested that I should not reject gifts, as it can also be selfish to denying another the pleasures of generosity.  Somewhere in all this gift and exchange and responsibility is a kind of nourishment that comes without financial currency.  Is a nourishment that comes from belonging to a place and to a people that is larger than the self.    This domain of belonging and relationship is what I would like to explore with restoration camping.  Our earth clearly needs us to do this work.  The landscapes that need restorations are the ones we drive by and buy coffee in on the way to our national parks.  Can restoration camping attract people for whom relationship with nature has been sold as the consumption of epic views?

Each person comes to the campfire with different purposes and needs. By understanding these purposes and needs we can arrange for everyone to be nourished by the relationship.  Each may also bring fears to the campfire.  We can tend to each others fears with compassion and without shame.  To design restoration camping we need to deeply understand our community to weave a network of mutual benefit.

In marketing, we profile different “market segments”, and use that knowledge to make sales.  We must be even more thoughtful in creating a restoration camping system, with attention to building more durable relationships then those of the open market.  I am not convinced that we can restore and tend the land as an entertainment business.  As I speculate about each member of our potential community,  I use the term “steward” to identify people with a deeper relationship with a particular camp or watershed, while “campers” are more likely to come and go.  There is a gradient of responsibility and reward, from steward to camper, that needs to be explored further.

Our Cast of Characters:

• Landowner Host – some owner or manager of land must be willing to invite a community of nomadic people they barely know to come live on their land and do work.  Their greatest fear is that these strangers will be more trouble then they are worth, or even abuse the offer of hospitality.  Our host however is interested because they are enlivened by a vision of abundance and restoration, but doesn’t have the resources to realize that vision.  Land Trusts struggle to maintain stewardship of their lands.  Private landowners usually know little about streams.  This guild offers a way to achieve a vision, but is asking for something in return.  That reciprocity needs to be clear.  Many conservation landowners only see human residence as a source of injury, and may believe their conservation work depends on removing people from their land, and will need examples of regenerative work.
• Professional Steward – At the heart of restoration camping are professionals who volunteer to design and lead projects and run recurring programs.  These are likely people with experience, but who are willing to serve and teach with only non-monetary compensation.  They want to see meaningful stewardship over time and want to be respected for their contribution.  Because they value their experience, and see a long term potential, they want to see their investment in a piece of land protected, and want some kind of assurance of a long term relationship with the land.  These individuals are likely to be government professionals or owners of established businesses: scientists, managers, educators, landscapers, and farmers.
• Watershed Partner – Also vital to the

  

  camp are individuals whose work in the watershed is so closely aligned with the purposes of the guild, that they can easily play a leadership role in supporting projects as part of their professional work.  Perhaps they do watershed education, regional planning, or restoration project development already, and the camp is a cadre of trained and equipped volunteers–a dream come true for a local team.  These include land trusts, conservation districts, tribes, counties, and NGOs.

• Camp Steward – Once a camp becomes established, I have imagined that some individual will need to devote their working life to managing a camp: tending reservations and schedules, answering questions, tending camp infrastructure, maintaining relationships.  This steward would likely be young but with diverse experience, and proven reliability.  The camp could serve as a stepping stone into other professional work, or could be a long term commitment.  The camp ultimately needs to give the camp steward a living wage and benefits to attract and retain people.  Annual membership dues are the unique component of the restoration camping system that would stabilize this persons livelihood.  At the start, this function will be provided by professional stewards.
• Producer Steward – Another group that might be attracted to camp, are people who are able to take a harvest from lands under stewardship, as part of their livelihood.  In many cases, harvest can enrich an ecosystem, or create niches to increase biodiversity.  This might include woodworkers, herbalists, basket makers,  florists, seed collectors, or restoration shops–people for whom an abundant landscape is a source of raw materials.  Part of their work may be the cultivation of collecting grounds, which they would require some assurance on long term tenure.

  

• Professional Educator – Among the professionals involved in the camp will individuals who make a living by teaching skills.  These folks need to sustain themselves by finding students who pay for knowledge.  The camp can provide a unique venue to run programs, and the guild provides a network for promoting their work.  They are concerned about giving away too much of their labor for free.  They need a reliable system and location that serves their educational goals, and are used to paying for a nightly group camping fee that they incorporate into their program costs.
• Young Camper – College students in natural sciences and design, and other life-long learners may be attracted to the camp as a place to build knowledge and skills.  They are likely looking for meaningful and organized learning opportunities.  They might hope that camp work leads to employment or mentorship, or at least an opportunity to test new skills.  Young campers may want to socialize with other people their age.  There are many young travelers that use systems like WWOOFing or Workaway.
• Professional Camper – Some professionals may not want the burdens of the steward, but are looking for enrichment among peers.  They will be disappointed if there is nothing new to be learned, or if camp projects are low quality.  Camping serves as a retreat among peers, and could be a venue for professional groups to meet.  Landowners could benefit from groups that use the camp as a case study for professional development.
• Recreational Camper – Most people will come restoration camping looking for a social environment for fun and learning.  They will want space and free time, a beautiful location, a body of water, and easy socialization with interesting people.  Overtime they may return in another role.  These may be fishers, hunters, nature lovers, or outdoor fitness enthusiasts.  Recreational campers might come into the guild through a purely commercial doorway, like HipCamp or AirBnB.

  

• Family Campers – This groups deserves special mention, because they have special desires and needs that revolve around their children.  They want a safe and loving environment, preferably with childcare opportunities.  The camp should be reliable, well organized, and not demanding, with activities that suit a range of ages.  Kids want to run free and explore.
• Landowner Neighbor – As the camp can demonstrate its work, and connects to the local community through social events and watershed assessment work, local landowners may be willing to invite the camp to work on their land.  The camp will need to overcome mistrust by being reliable and open handed.  Through shared stewardship, the neighbor develops a deeper relationship with their land, and can realize goals they cannot reach alone.

Each of these segments of our community is currently out there somewhere in our social landscape.  We need to weave an honest story of how they could belong and be nourished by restoration camping.  The abilities of one group, feed the needs of another.  This interaction is what makes the camp live.

I’d propose there are three sub-systems to develop in restoration camping:  the community, the camping, and the programming.   Because restoration camping is so complex, considering these three sub-systems helps us get organized.  Our ability to work together depends on developing a shared understanding about the purposes and functions of each sub-system, and the structures and rituals necessary achieve those purposes.

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   Community – we need the guild membership to have the ability to aggregate resources and govern and schedule itself.  This will necessarily rely on standard processes and agreements and web-based automation, but should not to replace face-to-face working relationships.  This community structure will necessarily have social, legal, financial, and informational components that interact.  I have assumed that the camp would be best operated as an LLC, because of flexibility of institutional structure, low startup cost, and financial adaptability.  However a democratic and cooperative non-profit private foundation would hold collected money, seek sponsorship, acquire and own capital resources, and fullfill its purpose by making gifts and equipment loans to subsidize the operation of restoration camping LLCs.  This results in a separation of powers and responsibilities, and a relationship of mutual accountability between a cooperative collective that aggregates and distributes shared resources in service, and entrepreneurial camps that learn to serve the collective in their own way building local knowledge.  This pattern allows for rapid expansion and experimentation at camps, while leaning on the foundation as an organizational “backbone”.  Training and support in decision making and establishing cultural rituals of inclusion, respect, and transparency will be critical to sustain a volunteer-owned and operated system.  Our initial financial and informational needs can be met through a combination of wordpress development, the salish sea wiki, and google tools.

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   Camping – we need the technologies, tools, and strategies that let us show up at a natural resources site anywhere in Cascadia, live well, and be able to work.  The core technologies are water purification, greywater,  and human waste composting, followed by group shelter, cooking and washing, and finally the diverse kit of tools we need to do different kinds of work in different ecosystems.  There will be hurdles presented by regulations that generally discourage nomadism, particularly around the composting of human waste.  I have imagined we would test and design three kits, each might come on its own trailer: a bathhouse, a kitchen, and a workshop.  Each trailer would be self-contained, and expand out into an well-designed system with shelter and all necessary functions.  The fundamental capital cost for a new camp are the kits, while operating costs are the wages of the camp steward, insurance, and internet support.  I assume we will use solar and LED for minimal electrical conveniences, and high-draft wood burning for energy.  A variety of modular structures such as geodesic domes, tepees or long house frames can provide group shelter for dining and gathering, however some kind of sustainable and non-toxic skin could have value (perhaps working with a sail maker on hemp canvas oil-cloth as an alternative to treated cotton, PVC-coated nylon, or disposable plastic tarps.)  There is lots of room for innovation and redesign.  Initial systems will be hodge-podge, and home-made, with found and adapted components and we will develop from there.  These technologies also support disaster preparedness (another potential service relationship.)

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   Programming – we need the network of professionals that are willing to design and teach so that campers have the support they need to learn through direct ecosystem management.  Campers must understand what they are doing, and feel compelled by the value of the service.  We would benefit from a design-review rituals that insure all projects are clear, effective, and efficient, and so respect the labor and learning goals of members.  Work is a process that has multiple yields.  We’ll be more efficient if we can learn to self-organize offerings through an internet platform.  Camps may ask for help from the guild with programming and design capacity.  Private groups, governments, tribes or anyone who wants to serve through teaching and design could offer experiences.  Any member of the guild can volunteer to teach,  offer training for a fee, or participate through their day job or business, as mediated by the camp stewards.  A critical challenge across ecological field work system will be information transparency and retention.  We can use the design and teaching process to build our information resources and the experiential capital of our membership, to then be applied to future work.  Our cultural conditioning is for professionals to get paid in cash to lead stewardship.  This creates a powerful social barrier to broad-scale ecosystem stewardship action.  We’ll need to figure this out.

When these three things converge we have restoration camping.  Each of the three sub-systems will push and pull the others into existence, and need to be developed in tandem.  They all interact with each other.  Because of the number of relationships involved in this system we will do a better job with design if we are doing it.  This suggests to me that we begin intermittent camping as soon as possible with what we have in hand, and build from that.  The first camp can be sustained by the simplest low tech systems.  Each camp informs a period of work before the next camp.  For both ecological and practical reasons, holding both dry season an wet season camps make sense (as the Norwegian fisherman says, “there is no bad weather, only bad clothing”)

We could get lost in the  complexity of what could be–becoming obsessed with planning to do, rather than letting the doing inform the plan.  So borrowing from the software world I have imagined an agile development approach with a focus on the desired future performance, achieved with incremental improvements, with a focus on testing a functioning camp system, rather than preparing for a grant rollout.  We continuously pursue a perfect state in a changing context, never arriving, but always adapting and making progress.