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FRIDAY, September 20Community Food Forests Forum |
6:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Facilitated by: Christopher Jones and James Allen
Join us for a forum to discuss what is working and what is challenging in the space of community food forests. We will cover issues related to public space as well as neighborhoods.
ACTC has partnered with the Southwest Agroforestry Action Network (SWAAN) to bring forward some of the best ideas and lessons learned in creating and maintaining community food forests.
We will present a brief overview of the following topics and then share our best resources and history on what has helped move the needle in each one of these topics - each topic will be covered in an hour:
- Working with cities, towns, and neighborhoods to plan and deliver a vision for food forests in community and neighborhood space.
- How understanding your current urban landscape and the area's history impacts the development of a food forest.
- Creating partnerships that advance the vision, engage the community, and increase the opportunity for funding food-forest projects.
- How to embrace the concept of 'fail faster' and 'fail forward' to move comfortably from a food-forest plan to execution with an imperfect set of variables.
Bring your openness to learn and to share during this facilitated program!
| Presenter Bio: Chris Jones is the University of Arizona Extension Agent for Agriculture and Natural Resources Programs in Gila County. Over the past 25 years, he has taught gardening classes at the college and led the Gila County Master Gardener program; and has managed extension programs in water and watersheds (Master Watershed Stewards and Cobre Valley Watershed Partnership), forest health and tree care, noxious weed management, climate science education, and community wildfire mitigation (Arizona Fire Adapted Communities Network). Current programs include biochar awareness and arid land agroforestry, and Master Gardener activities, such as fruit tree grafting (Payson, Gisela) and stinknet rapid response (Globe-Miami). Chris earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Forestry at Northern Arizona University and a Master of Science Degree in Renewable Natural Resources at University of Arizona. Chris' mission at the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension is to Improve lives, families, communities, the environment and economies through applied research and education in Arizona and beyond. |
Christopher Jones
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Presenter Bio:
James (Jim) Allen is a Professor in the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and served as its Executive Director from 2007 to 2021. Dr. Allen also served as the Interim Dean of the College of the Environment, Forestry and Natural Sciences in 2022. Prior to his arrival at NAU in 2006, he served for six years as the Dean of the Forestry Division at Paul Smith’s College, in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. He also worked as a research ecologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Louisiana and for the U.S. Forest Service in Hawaii. Dr. Allen’s interest in agroforestry and food forests dates to his work as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland. His involvement in agroforestry in the Southwest began in 2017, when he took a sabbatical and spent part of it investigating current practices in this region. Dr. Allen recently completed a survey of urban and peri-urban food forests in the Four Corners region, with a primary focus on Arizona, and has published both peer-reviewed and non-technical publications on food forests and other agroforestry topics. He is a founding member and past chair of the Southwest Agroforestry Action Network. |
James A. Allen