Post by Emily Donaldson
Wind-swept and open, I find every venture out to Pilot Hill still relinquishes a new space to explore. Whether biking, running, or hiking, I enjoy navigating the undulating hills of limestone, sandstone, and shale. If I’m lucky, I’ll identify a grassland bird species or stumble upon some pronghorn. Many Laramie residents share this place-based connection to the public space formerly under private ownership. The over 7,000-acre Pilot Hill property east of Laramie came together through collaborative land acquisitions in 2017. Now managed by Pilot Hill, Inc., the property is managed for local residents like me, visitors, wildlife conservation, and aquifer protection.
Since the Pilot Hill Project began, the Laramie community (A.KA. Laramigos) avidly participated in the land use plan process. Pilot Hill Inc. organized repeated focus groups and public meetings with collaborating partners to develop their mission, goals, and land use plan. This process complemented a survey that actively captured residents’ values and perceptions regarding the community-based project. This showcased effective science communication and engagement, targeting specific audiences and working collaboratively to achieve mutually agreed-upon goals. The community engagement process wrapped up with a public presentation in 2020 when the public space officially opened. Now, in 2022, the Pilot Hill, Inc board is seeking assistance from undergraduate and graduate student groups through an Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) class at the University of Wyoming.
Various class projects hope to further bolster this community-driven multi-use space while keeping residents engaged. One undergraduate group drafted a survey to establish a baseline understanding of recreational use, while a graduate student group is surveying and interviewing key community stakeholders on their perspectives of Pilot Hill as recreationists. Honing in on Laramie recreationists as their targeted stakeholder group, they continued the process of keeping these key community members up-to-date, while ensuring their voices are heard and incorporated into management decisions. My group’s intensive literature review, chalk full of cost-effective and feasible monitoring methods, round out the considerations of recreational and wildlife monitoring. The literature review could easily embody the deficit model, dumping technical information and jargon on a suite of decision-makers and managers. To integrate a more effective model of science communication into the project, we included updates to materials on the Volunteer Ambassador Program.
This program serves as one way that passionate, conservation-minded residents can stay involved with the property, aside from recreation. Last year, some thirty volunteers participated in the Pilot Hill Volunteer Ambassador program, serving as a friendly and watchful presence, recording observations of trail conditions and management needs via an ArcGIS Story Map app. Still, there is additional need for roaming trail counters or fixed trail counters at trailheads to better understand the amount and type of recreationists using the property. Another recommendation, besides monitoring recreational traffic and potential impacts, entails citizen scientists recording observations of wildlife through iNaturalist and eBird. These volunteers could possibly serve as biodiversity ambassadors, complementing the trail ambassadors to illustrate a more comprehensive landscape painting of wildlife-recreation interactions. I invited feedback from the Pilot Hill, Inc. board and current ambassadors as primary stakeholder groups for these proposed additions, hoping to spark further engagement in an iterative, collaborative process of furthering citizen science efforts in Laramie.
As of now, Pilot Hill, Inc. is seeking Volunteer Ambassadors for the 2022 season. I decided to jump on board for this year, feeling much more connected to this community space than before. My group and the other ENR classes will also present their student projects on Thursday, May 5th from 4-6 pm in Beta House 207 if you are interested in learning more. I am excited to see where this multi-faceted project continues in the future, following years of robust community buy-in and support. As a current Laramigo, ENR student, and passionate conservationist, this grassroots project drew me in, hoping to help Pilot Board, Inc., other managers, and recreationists continue to enjoy and protect this exceptional space and actively engage in science-based, citizen-driven management. Pilot Hill, nestled in Laradise’s (Laramie’s) backyard, truly demonstrates the potential as a viable public space that balances multiple uses and needs.
Emily Donaldson is a graduate student at the University of Wyoming studying adaptive drought management in northeastern Colorado.
references
About Pilot Hill. Pilot Hill Project. 2020. https://pilothill.org/about/
Contribute to Pilot Hill Today. Pilot Hill Project. 2020. https://pilothill.org/donate/
LaramieWYACTB. 2021, May 25. Pilot hill recreation area opens to the public: Visit Laramie Wyoming. Laramie Area Visitors Center. https://www.visitlaramie.org/articles/post/pilot-hill-opening/
YouFund campaign supports UW student research on impacts of recreation on Pilot Hill Wildlife. 2021, April 26. . University of Wyoming. https://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2021/04/youfund-campaign-supports-uw-student-research-on-impacts-of-recreation-on-pilot-hill-wildlife.html
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