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Stewardship Salons

Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika Svendsen, Julie Hernandez - USDA FS, NRS

Novem Auyeung, Nichole McClain, Neha Savant - NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, Division of Environment & Planning

A guide to collaborative learning spaces that foster and strengthen networks

in natural resource stewardship.

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What are Stewardship Salons and why should we host them?

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Stewardship Salons

Stewardship Salons are collaborative learning space that foster a community of voices in natural resources care and stewardship.

Engaging land managers, scientists, artists, and other practitioners.

A space to engage participants in experimentation and creative methods not normally a part of their daily work, while exposing them to new knowledge and perspectives.

(“Human diagram” of NYC water system –

led & photographed by Lize Mogel, UFS Artist, 2016.)

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The Origins: Learning from Place

In 2017,Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani, a Native Hawaiian kumu and her learners from Hawaiʻi to exchange with NYC stewardship practitioners.

Kekuhi encouraged us to organize our own community prior to the exchange, to prepare ourselves to be in dialogue with different ways of knowing and Indigenous practices.

Photo Credit:

Giles Ashford

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Do you participate in co-learning spaces?

If so, what kinds of co-learning do you engage in?

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Why “salon”?

Signifies a gathering of individuals who carry experiences and perspectives related to a particular subject, and, in the case of these spaces, stewardship, is our topic of focus.

Stewardship is the act of protecting, taking care of, or being responsible for our environments, our communities, and those who we share them with– both other humans and the non-humans.

Participating in tree care during UFS Artist Cecile Chong’s (right) Stewardship Salon - Photo by Lindsay Campbell

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Stewardship Salons

The Salons are more than a professional development experience, they provide

A source of inspiration to strengthen one’s capacity in their work

A co-learning space to engage with new thoughts and ideas

An atmosphere to build relationships outside of a “traditional” work setting

(Clockwise from top left: Michaeline Picaro discussing Ceremonial Stone Landscapes at Inwood Park; Georgia Silvera Seamans sharing stories from the history of Washington Square Park; searching for salamanders at Highbridge Park with Neha Savant and Brady Simmons, coastal cleanup at Coney Island Creek with Pamela Pettyjohn)

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Stewardship Salon Impacts

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Capacity building

Professional & Personal Development

Relationship & Trust Building

Two federal workforce development grants awarded to NYC Parks (totalling $10.6m)
NYC Parks-wide policy for communicating about invasive and/or non-native sp.
Increased capacity to engage with NJ/NY Indigenous groups
Strengthened relationships between attendees

BIL NOAA grant and an IRA grant focused on workforce development. Two salon organizers mentioned that their participation in the stewardship salons was instrumental to us getting these grants because those grant proposals are filled with language that we picked up from the stewardship salons. These grants confer funding to NYC Parks to hire coordinators and fund year round internships for high school and colleges students from low income and historically disinvested communties. Parks, through some of the capacity and relationships developed in the salons, will be working closely with partners to fulfill interests and needs of interns and the communities they are part of. At the end of the grant these local partners will retain the workplaces, schedules, processes and potential trained staff, thereby increasing capacity within organizations for nature resource management work.

Invasive species communications - something I’ve personally been involved in.

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What is our typical format for the Salons?

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Stewardship Salon Audience and Cadence

Stewardship Salons engage:

natural resource managers
scientists
artists
other community stewards

Currently, we host four salons a year, each focusing on a variety of subjects including:

land- and water-based natural resources stewardship
the arts
Indigenous knowledge and other culturally-rooted knowledges.

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Stewardship Salon Format

Stewardship Salon are typically a 2-hour outdoor event, that is not a field tour but a co-created experience. They include a…

Opening Welcome (~ 30 minutes)
Host- Guided Activity (~ 75 minutes)
Closing Circle Discussion (~10 minutes)
Concluding Goodbyes (~ 5 minutes)

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Opening Welcome

Connect participants to place, to each other, and to set expectations for the experience.

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Opening Welcome (1)

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Opening Welcome (1)

Review ground rules/community agreement
Build connection to place

Kuahu
Land acknowledgement
Discussing site history

Introduction to Speaker
Opening Prompt

Examples:

Wherever you define yourself as “from,” what have you noticed changing in your place?
From your personal, family, cultural, spiritual, or religious perspective, can you describe a sacred place that has meaning to you and how you interact with it?

(Kuahu built from prompt- Please bring a plant, product, or object that symbolizes the harvest season in NYC. Some objects include apples, pumpkins, pencils, etc. Photo by Lindsay Campbell.)

Following the ground rules, we begin to build our connection to place. This has looked different over the years but can include:

the construction of a kuahu, altar of Native Hawaiian spiritual practice, which was adopted from the original “Learning from Place” workshop mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. Explain the image to the left
A land acknowledgement– to recognize the Indigenous stewards of the land where the event takes place and provoke thought about what ways one can assist Indigenous peoples in uplifting their specific goals. It is recommended to ask local Indigenous communities how they’d like to be recognized or co-create statements.
Or through briefly discussing the site history

We then introduce the featured speaker/host of the Salon and begin building connection/relationship to each other through an opening prompt:

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2. Host-Guided Activity

A place-based conversation and activity led by the featured host.

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Host-Guided Activity (2)

Examples:

A walk and talk through the cultural landscape of a Park by an Indigenous leader.

A field-based inquiry of the told and untold stories of a public park

Exploring the historical ecology of salamanders in Manhattan

Milkweed paper making and conversations about monarch butterfly migration and nuances of language around native, non-native, & invasive species

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What potential Salon topics resonate with you?

What would be a topic that you’d want to explore at a Salon?

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3. Closing Circle Discussion

A space for prompted reflection on themes discussed, any key takeaways or next steps.

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Closing Circle Discussion (3)

Examples:

Can you reflect on any new connections between topics that came up for you today, including the relationships between plants, land management, and art?

How can art transform our experience of place and the environment?

What does it mean to steward a connection as opposed to a site?

Rebecca Pryor of Guardians of Flushing Bay, leads a salon in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens. Photo Credit: Julie Capito

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4. Concluding Goodbyes

The end to another Stewardship Salon event but not to the conversation.

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Concluding Goodbyes (4)

Invitation to continue to the conversation, grow the network, and attend future events

(Nikki Lindt, UFS Artist in Resident, hosts a Salon in Prospect Park, Brooklyn with her outdoor sound exhibit.)

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What are the first steps to implementing Stewardship Salons at my institution?

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First Steps to Implementing Stewardship Salons

Scope out external natural resource stewardship organizations, community groups, cultural practitioners, etc. to collaborate with

Find a way to frame this experience to get buy-in from your organization.

Form a planning committee and begin thinking about potential topics, speakers, and locations.

Michaeline Picaro discussing Ceremonial Stone Landscapes at Inwood Park. 2022.

It is super important to begin by asking yourselves: who do I want to be in community with?

From this question:

Scope out external natural resource stewardship organizations, community groups, cultural practitioners, etc. to collaborate with– especially those that approach stewardship from other lenses (e.g. neighborhood beautification, spiritual practices, Indigenous ways of knowing), interest points, and worldviews, and begin to build relationships with them. Also, don’t neglect to look inward at your organization to individuals that may have perspectives to offer that typically are not heard in your organizational spaces. These individuals and organizations could be future Salon featured hosts as well as additional individuals to invite to participate more generally in the salons.

Find a way to frame this experience to get buy-in from your organization or find a partner that can help support the organizational work. Not all organizations’ leadership initially see value in creating these co-learning, community spaces. In our experience, we have had success through framing the Salons as a professional development opportunity for natural resource practitioners that builds cultural competency and the skills necessary for effectively engaging with the public. In addition, Salons have been seen as productive because they are excellent networking opportunities. The connections made at stewardship salons are often more generative because of the uniqueness of the shared experience.

Form a planning committee and begin thinking about potential topics, speakers (both internal and external to your organization), and locations Stewardship Salons could be held at.

This is an iterative process that will grow, change, and progress overtime as your network expands.

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What needs to be planned before hosting a Salon?

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Before Hosting a Salon:

Brainstorm a documentation plan to keep track of Salon activities and participants

Consider ways to maintain the network and community fostered during the events

Decide on a featured speaker and co-create agenda

Tommy Yang, UFS Artist in Residence leads a salon in Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Before hosting Salons:

Think about how your institution should document them for both internal tracking and sharing with the broader, external community— including to those who may not have been able to attend.

This could include keeping track of attendance, maintaining a list of Salon hosts, themes, and resources shared during the Salon as well as notes which could be shared post Salon to your network. Additionally, obtaining permission from participants to take photos could lead to the creation of small featured stories/emails to be shared among the network.

Additionally consider ways to maintain the network and community fostered during the event (ex. Group chats, list servs, etc.)

Then before each Salon:

Decide on a featured host

Co-create an agenda that outlines the intent of the Salon, its theme and location during the course of 1-2 meeting, which is also important to create and build trust among facilitators
Think about the needs of the participants— accommodations, pre-readings, activity details, recommended dress, etc.

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We just hosted our first Salon! What should we do next?

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Keep the momentum!

Post-Salon, our planning team reconvenes to have a debrief.

We reflect on questions such as:

What resonated with you?
What will you take away?
What worked and what didn't?
Where do we want to go from here?

Also think about next steps:

Implementing the communication plan & documentation plan
Assigning someone the task to follow-up with attendees
Brainstorming future salon hosts and topics

A 2019 Salon held at Governor’s Island exploring the feral edge landscapes during a group walk.

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This is a starting point for those who are interested in developing and hosting their own co-learning spaces.

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We encourage you to adjust this however you want to your community and place!

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Thank you!

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Contact: Julie Hernandez- julie.hernandez@usda.gov

Lindsay Campbell- lindsay.campbell@usda.gov

Useful Links:

Stewardship Salon Guide

https://ufsarts.com/

Biocultural Stewardship Article https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/59971

Not by Trees Alone https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/64338

Urban ʻĀina https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/67167

Best Practices for Hearing All Voices in Our Urban Forests

https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/63307

The Caretakers of Place: Better Understanding Stewardship with Resources from the USDA Forest Service NYC Urban Field Station

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