This is my fifth day here in D.C. and I am still loving it. I came on Friday to attend the America’s Great Outdoors Conference and I was excited to see our president outline a vision for reconnecting people to the landscape. His vision included bold conservation initiatives and economic development that is based on strong place based collaborative solutions. I rode the high I was on from that event right through the weekend and into our RVCC meetings this week.

Today was a typical day in the life of a community member who travels to D.C. for one of these things. I woke up early nervous about the way I looked, and worried about my message points for the day. Both anxieties evaporated quickly in our first meeting which was with Robert Bonnie, senior policy advisor to Secretary Vilsack. Robert was very well versed in our issues and we, I think, offered a well rounded set of messages around the art of the possible in getting rural communities to be effective partners to the federal government in the conservation of whole landscapes.

Then I was out the door and onto the curb to flag down a cab. This is something for which I have no aptitude. Give me a halter and ask me to catch a wild horse and I might be half way capable. But standing there on the curb I am paralyzed: Do I step into the street or do I stay on the curb?  Do I stay where I am or walk to the corner? Oh, the anxieties of a country girl gone urban.

But succeed I did, and off I was to my next meeting with policy staff at the Trust for Public land to talk about our shared interest in the Community Forest and Open Space Program.  That went super well and I got a chance to see many of our other friends at TPL who have helped us achieve the largest private lands conservation project in the United States…the Montana Legacy Project….back home.

I walked to Union Station to meet with my friend and colleague Mo Bookwalter on her strategy for the meeting with Senator Baucus’ office. We had a little lunch and a few laughs and then I was off on foot again to the Council for Environmental Quality. Again, our group talked about the ripe opportunities right now for rural job creation and capacity building in communities that are trying to tackle large conservation challenges like land conversion and climate change.

I jumped in a cab with two of our younger RVCC members, Dylan and Alaina, and loved hearing their enthusiasm for not just that CEQ meeting in particular, but for the entire administration. It is definitely true that we are hearing language from this administration about collaboration, conservation and rural jobs that we could have written and that is very exciting.

So now it’s off to our big reception to have informal conversations with allies from around the city. 

The most amazing thing about RVCC’s Western Week in Washington is the way that Sustainable Northwest has made it possible for voices like mine to a) show up and b) be heard. I could not afford to come here without the support of the convening partners of RVCC. I could not begin to know who to meet and with whom I should share my story and try to make it relevant to this government. SNW staff did that for me. Most importantly, I would not have the confidence to carry myself around this city were it not for the huge investment in training and leadership development that SNW has put into me over the past nine years.  THANK YOU SUSTAINABLE NORTHWEST!!!

~ Melanie Parker, Northwest Connections