FoxHershockMappingCommunities

DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITY CAPACITY THROUGH SPATIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY:
THE CASE OF TRINITY COMMUNITY GIS
tribes are using SIT to map reservations and ancestral
territories, and in tribal management of natural resources.
As part of SIT training, TC GIS always stresses that the first
step is to decide what the purpose of SIT use is and to plan
from there in terms of what data are to be collected, how
they are to be used, and
who will own and control
the data. Since much of
the data TC GIS uses come
from public agencies,
public resources, or already
public information, most TC
GIS data are freely available
unless it is established from
the outset of a project that
the data are proprietary or
of a sensitive nature. Also
established early on are any
distribution rights, e.g., no
distribution, limited distribution, display but no sharing, by
permission only.
EXAMPLES: One example of a major project with several
offshoots involving SIT is the work of the Trinity County Fire-
Safe Council. The Trinity area is subject to large, severe
wild fires. In 1987, for example, over 20,000 hectares
burned in the county as part of a total of over 100,000 ha
burned in a large lightning storm. These types of events
occurring across California led to the establishment of a
state-level Fire-Safe Council to coordinate fire management
at the state, regional, and local levels and to support local
level efforts at fire management (California Fire Safe Council
2004). In 1998, the Trinity County Fire-Safe Council
(TCFSC) was formed, bringing together fire fighters,
agencies, and the public. They soon recognized the need
for landscape scale planning.
SIT was used to develop base data layers for community
mapping. Public meetings were organized by local
volunteer fire departments. (Other than public agencies,
there is only one full-time, paid fire official in the county.)
Maps were used to illustrate current conditions and to
facilitate participation by recruiting local meeting
participants to identify (1) available resources for emergency
response such as water sources, logistical locations,
unidentified roads, and fuel breaks; (2) potential hazards
such as locked gates, weak
bridges, bad roads, and
fuel concentrations; and (3)
possible solutions
including fuel reduction
work, enhanced
communications, local
maps and equipment
acquisition. Working
together on the maps led
to better understanding of
the process, resource
conditions, and agency
limitations along with more
confident participation and more collaboration, especially
among normally antagonistic groups such as loggers and
environmentalists or recreationists and developers
(Everett et al. 2000).
Through this process, over one hundred potential projects
were identified. This led to education and outreach to
thousands of people, community members and beyond,
which led in turn to identifying, procuring funding for, and
implementing over thirty-five projects so far. These projects
brought with them jobs along with a sense of community
self-reliance and better relations with government agencies.
Another product of this process is a nearly complete draft
county fire management plan (TCRCD 2004).
Other examples of projects benefiting from SIT are resource
management efforts. In 1993, only the USFS used SIT to a
small extent in the Trinity area. Now several federal and
state agencies, Trinity County, the timber industry, the
WRTC, and the RCD all use SIT to analyze conditions,
identify problems and potential solutions, procure funding,
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