The Netweaver Network: How Can the CCRN Benefit From Joining a Network Community of Practice?

This workshop will engage CCRN members in a dialogue about how to enhance effectiveness of their network, drawing on the session organizing team’s experience investigating and advising many other community-based conservation... [ view full abstract ]

This workshop will engage CCRN members in a dialogue about how to enhance effectiveness of their network, drawing on the session organizing team’s experience investigating and advising many other community-based conservation learning networks. We will begin by introducing the members of our team, who include university-based researchers as well as environmental professionals. We will then provide an introduction (15min) to our decade-long exploration into how learning networks can support community conservation when deeply-rooted obstacles to change have proven resistant to both top-down and bottom-up approaches (Goldstein and Butler, 2009; Goldstein, 2012; Goldstein et al. 2017a,b). We will describe how effective networks can amplify the potential for transformative change by disrupting old habits, fostering new relationships, and providing communities with the freedom to define their own place and purpose while promoting coherence and collective action at higher organizational scales. We will also discuss how effective learning networks rely on network facilitators, or “netweavers”, who connect people to address shared interests and challenges, promote information flow across all network levels, and build social ties that support a shared professional identity.

We will then turn the spotlight on the CCRN by engaging workshop participants in a dialogue (20min) about whether our understanding of other networks resonates with their own experiences participating in the CCRN. Over the past decade we have noted that while a few network leadership guides are available, netweavers don’t have their own learning community. Accordingly, over the past year we have been developing a new practitioner-centered initiative, the Netweaver Network (http://www.netweavernetwork.org/). We will describe (15 min) how we are engaging with netweavers from other community-based networks such as the Fire Adapted Community Learning Network, the Savory Network, and Environmental Defense Fund’s networks in Chile, Spain, and Cuba, and describe our plans for an online learning platform as well as meetings, learning exchanges, and personalized support. We will then divide the room into groups and conduct a brainstorming session (30min) about how the CCRN could benefit from participating in the netweaver network, and conclude with summaries from each group (10min). We hope that this conversation is just the beginning of a beneficial relationship between the CCRN and the Netweaver Network, and look forward to follow-up conversations during the conference about possible ways we can help strengthen the CCRN.

Citations and full papers available at:http://www.brugo.org/meet-the-team/bruce-goldstein/