Kinda long, but kinda funny

[Gabe Ayers]

This story (joke) resonated powerfully with me because I spend allot of time
trying to integrate the communities of interest of modern draft animal use in the forest and environmental groups and the government. One would think that given the often common goals of these interest groups, that working together would be a natural…. Well it’s not a natural and we have a really hard time gaining the support of any particular group, but will keep trying. As time goes on maybe more groups will stop dismissing animal power as backwards and see the it is back to the future so to speak. I tell this one at public speaking events sometimes and some may have heard it elsewhere but – Here you go:

A big environmental group and the government had gotten together when the environmentalist had received a grant to deal with the coyote problem in the farming community. They held a big public meeting at the local high school to announce their plans to deal with this problem. The entire community crowded into the gym and the speaker told them they had gotten a big grant to deal with this problem and they had a plan. The plan was to live capture all the coyotes and to neuter them and release them. Everybody
applauded the speaker except one old timer sitting in the back of the room wearing overalls and work clothes. He stood up and raised his hand after the applause died down. The speaker recognized him and asked if he had a question. The old timer stood up and said, I know you highly educated and well paid folks know allot – but I think there is one thing you don’t understand. These coyotes are eating our sheep not trying to @#*~ breed them….

This joke illustrates how many well intended folks may have very different views of what to do about some situations. That seems to be the case with our work of promoting restorative forestry through modern animal powered techniques. Mainstream colleges and industry want to dismiss it as low production, labor intensive and not practical. Meanwhile everyone is talking about creating “green jobs” and re-powering America and change in this country. The point is that there are opportunities to do exactly that through supporting much of what everyone on this board already wants to do and many are doing. In particular more support could be given to groups that already are dedicated to training folks to do “green jobs”. There aren’t really many of those.

Our organization works daily to promote this approach to sustainable forestry, sustainable community development, water quality protection,
reduced carbon footprint, social justice and on and on. One would think
agencies of all kinds would be lined up to help us accomplish those goals, objectives and our mission statement…. but they aren’t. In fact most environmental groups are more about insuring salaries for the folks that run the organizations first and everything else second. We need their support, but it is hard to get, when all the entrenched interest starting with industry
doesn’t want to loose one particle of the status quo and the control they have over natural resource options or the ways they currently address human needs for a profit that doesn’t account for the whole ecological cost being considered.

HHFF mission statement: To address human needs for forest products while creating a nurturing coexistence between the forest and human community.

Hope a few get a chuckle out of that joke. If anyone has any ideas of how we can integrate our work into any other interest group please let us know.

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