Motor Tour Guide, Braille Trails Win Awards
An environmentally sensitive guide to motor touring and new trails for the blind are among the projects honored by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last month.
Jim Jennings, a recreation planner from the BLM’s Bishop, California field office, won the agency’s 2002 “Excellence in Interpretation or Environmental Education” award for his work in developing an innovative guide to remote roads in California’s Eastern Sierra region.
Wade Johnson, a resource interpreter/wilderness coordinator at BLM’s Grand Junction, Colorado field office, won an honorable mention award for his work on interpretive trails designed for the visually impaired.
The BLM “Excellence” Awards recognize outstanding BLM interpreters and educators for their work on employee conducted programs that enhance public appreciation and understanding of natural resources on public lands.
Nominees were judged on the quality of their work, their ability to involve partners, their effectiveness in enhancing public understanding of cultural and natural resources, their programs’ or products’ accessibility and sensitivity to diverse audiences, and their success in helping the BLM accomplish its management goals.
This year’s winner and honorable mention awardee each received a framed certificate of recognition and will also receive monetary awards.
BLM deputy director Jim Hughes, who presented the award, said the production of “Motor Touring in the Eastern Sierra” was the result of a large cooperative project involving federal, state and local governments as well as civic and volunteer groups.
“Jim Jennings not only helped with much of the research for the guide, he also helped forge a partnership of many agency and citizen groups to support and promote the guide,” Hughes said. “Once the guide was published, Jim created a marketing plan and helped distribute it throughout the region.”
The 18 routes in the guide are almost all on public land. Jennings and his team chose routes that visitors can use without damaging the lands, and the guide weaves in a message about environmentally responsible recreation.
More than 70,000 copies of the guides have been printed, and it has become very popular among motor tourists in the Eastern Sierra region of California and Nevada.
Honorable Mention award winner Wade Johnson was nominated for establishing and maintaining interpretive programs and exhibits for the Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area, and working with local partners and diverse groups. Among his accomplishments are an interpretive trail for the sight impaired and another trail in the sensitive Fruita Paleontological Area.
Johnson helped create BLM’s first interpretive trail designed for the sight impaired. He worked with the local chapter of the National Federation for the Blind to design a trail at Dinosaur Hill with special interpretive signs that can be read and understood by sight impaired individuals.
Provided by theEnvironmental News Service.
