Executive Director Reports:

Action Plan Approved; Committees to Be Revitalized

At its September 22 meeting, the Executive Committee approved the SAMAB Cooperative’s draft Action Plan. This will help a great deal in guiding our future direction. In particular, it will help in the preparation of a realistic annual budget for SAMAB, something we have not had in the past.

Here are some highlights of the Action Plan:

• SAMAB's No. 1 goal is to develop a more focused program of work to meet stakeholder needs. We must identify and prioritize the region’s key issues relating to natural resource management and economic development. As you know, we have made much progress in this area already, and many on the Executive Committee have put in long hours identifying the issues.

• The second goal is to improve our communication with policy-makers, decision-makers, and other stakeholders. Again, much has been accomplished. One major step in this direction came at the Southeastern Natural Resources Leaders seminar in Chattanooga on August 15-17. This group agreed to send their respective agency heads a resolution strongly supporting SAMAB and encouraging their support and help.

• Still more is needed. For example, we need to beef up networking with community leaders, congressional leaders, and state legislators, and to share with them timely reports about what SAMAB is doing. The aim is to get these leaders to use SAMAB for resolving some of their resource/development problems.

• The third goal is to get the resources - the people and the money - essential for carrying out the SAMAB program successfully. Last year, more of the SAMAB members increased their financial support and new members joined the cooperative.

The Action Plan is dynamic, which means there will be ongoing changes. However, it gives us a basis to move ahead on a more solid footing.

One very important element needed to make the plan successful is the revitalizing of our working committees. These committees, composed of committed volunteers from member agencies, have been responsible for much of the progress we have made to date. But they now need - and are beginning to get - stronger support.

At the last Executive Committee meeting, Chairman Briane Adams asked members to nominate people as soon as possible to serve on the revamped working committees so that appointments can be made and the committees brought to full strength by November 14. That is the day that SAMAB's annual Fall Conference begins. Briane wants a plenary meeting with these restructured committees during the conference.

Executive Committee To Meet November 14

The next meeting of the SAMAB Executive Committee will be held November 14 at 1:00 pm at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The meeting will coincide with the annual SAMAB Fall Conference.

Newsletter, Stationery Getting New Look

You'll notice a difference in this issue of the SAMAB newsletter. It sports a new look which the Executive Committee feels will better reflect the cooperative’s new maturity and stature.

The newsletter is now printed in federal blue ink on white recycled paper, and features the SAMAB logo that was approved by the Executive Committee at its June 16 meeting. The logo, you may remember, was designed and produced without charge to SAMAB by Thomas Fairclough of Antista Design in Atlanta. Thanks again to Mr. Fairclough!

This issue of the newsletter prints the logo in blue type. Future issues will have the logo in full color.

SAMAB's stationery has also been redesigned using blue on white, just like the newsletter, and will also be on recycled paper. It too will use the new logo in full color. Federal and state members of the Cooperative are listed in each issue of the newsletter and on the new stationery. New members are expected to be added in the coming months, and these will be listed in subsequent issues.

Mark McNeely, education specialist in TVA's Technology Transfer program, and Dick Green, a member of SAMAB's Public Affairs Committee, designed the newsletter and stationery formats. The Executive Committee approved the new designs at its September 22 meeting in Norris, Tennessee.

Congressional Team Surveys Eco-Development Progress

A team from the General Accounting Office (GAO) visited Southern Appalachia September 8-16 to learn about SAMAB's current and potential future role in ecosystem management.

Ralph J. Domenick, senior evaluator in the Resources, Commmunity and Economic Development Division of GAO, headed the team, which conferred with Executive Committee Chairman Briane Adams, Executive Director Hubert Hinote, and many other SAMAB cooperators.

The team wanted to know particularly how SAMAB dealt with three barriers to ecosystem management which GAO had identified in an April 28, 1994 report. The report was entitled Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to Adequately Test a Promising Approach. It identified the barriers to government-wide ecosystem management as (1) problems with data, (2) problems with interagency coordination, and (3) insufficient collaboration with non-federal parties.

The team was interested in how SAMAB approached these barriers and what could be done by Congress to address them.

The team's visit was at the direction of the Congress. It paralleled an earlier visit to the region by a White House team that surveyed the status of ecosystem management initiatives in Southern Appalachia.

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