Case Study: Cows & Fish
Stories from Canada's Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society

Learn more about this project:
http://www.cowsandfish.org/photos/digital.html

The Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society, also known as "Cows and Fish,” strives to foster a better understanding of how improvements in grazing and other management of riparian areas can enhance landscape health and productivity for the benefit of landowners, agricultural producers, and communities. The Society works to promote the improvement of riparian-area ecological processes and functions throughout Alberta Province, Canada, by undertaking voluntary, proactive education and awareness activities for producers, other landowners, and their communities.

Since the society’s inception, one of its key priorities has been to listen to and document landowners’ stories about the successes and difficulties of managing their land. At first, stories were second and third-hand written accounts, accompanied by photographs. In November 2006 the Center for Digital Storytelling facilitated its first workshop for Cows and Fish staff. They told stories of personal experiences that reflect their own commitment both to the landscape and to the communities where they live and work—a commitment recognized as vital to the success of the program.

Since the initial workshop, four more workshops held in locations across Alberta have brought ranchers, farmers, small landowners, Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development staff, and Sustainable Resource Development staff together to share stories. At each successive workshop, Cows and Fish staff have taken the lead in recruiting new storytellers and have begun to support the digital storytelling workshop process. Three local digital story ‘screening’ events have also been organized.

The Center’s ongoing partnership with Cows and Fish continues to look at ways in which digital stories can encourage the agricultural industry, rural communities, individual landowners, and local non-landowners to work together to promote practical, effective solutions for existing and emerging environmental challenges. The success of the project is perhaps best expressed by the Alberta Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture staff person who said this, about his workshop experience: “After years of saying the same old thing the same old way and having no one listen, I have a new way to tell people what I do and why it is important.”