Page 44 - Local Voices, Local Choices Excerpt

42 local voices, local choices
reserves, which was to connect the village forests for regeneration pur- poses. The parents who made those decisions during the planning period, their children have grown up and their family size has increased. Now, this next generation believes their parents chose wrong, and so they’re claiming back the piece of land. This creates problems for resource use.
“I see the gap there, that the education we are giving is not integrating with what other departments are doing. My take is that the type of Roots & Shoots education within Tacare needs to be inspiring and teaching the practices of what the villagers and the parents are doing for the generation gap to be minimized. Rather than teaching about the importance of tree planting, it has to go along with understanding the soil chemistry, under- standing the land-use practices, understanding about the other variables. The approach needs to be integrated.”
Japhet’s forward thinking shows why the Tacare approach needs to be fluid, adapting over time in response to trends that may emerge years later. As the Zashe example shows, constant re-evaluation is important to understand what the cascading effects are from one generation to the next.
The seeds planted in one generation may bear unexpected fruit in the next, as social and environmental conditions change. After all, in the natural world, feedback cycles can be both positive and negative.