Daniel Iacofano, MIG, Berkeley
A river floods. A flood control channel is built. Problem solved. Except that everyone hates it. Even the best river restoration plan or flood control plan won’t work if you don’t have the right people at the table before it’s a plan. You’ll need to draw diverse community members into an authentic conversation from the outset, to frame the problem, develop potential solutions, and agree on next steps—in person or in virtual meetings. Your key messages, outreach methods, languages and educational materials need to match your target audiences. Depending on where the waterway is, that can include environmentalists, the Army Corps, land developers, agricultural interests, recreationists, homeowners, nearby residents, businesses, unions and tribal representatives. How well you reach out to and engage those diverse interests will determine whether your river plan succeeds.
Event took place Tuesday 24 October.
Talk given by Daniel Iacofano, followed by a panel discussion with John Hart, Juliet Lamont, and Daniela Peña Corvillon
The Napa River in Napa, California. Photo courtesy of MIG, Inc.
Speaker bio:
Daniel Iacofano (Ph.D., FAICP, FASLA) is internationally recognized as an innovator and thought leader in urban planning and design, facilitation, and consensus building. Co-founder of the firm MIG, Daniel has worked with hundreds of communities and organizations around the world to think strategically and critically about achieving desired change. His projects have included a number of river projects, in which his team helped communities identify solutions to flooding problems that also restore ecological processes in rivers and human access to them. Notable among these was the Napa River project, which has been celebrated as a project that successfully reduced flood risk while restoring river processes.
Panelist bios:
Poet and environmental journalist John Hart is author of sixteen books and several hundred other published works, notably San Francisco Bay: portrait of an estuary (UC Press 2003). Winner of the James D. Phelan Award, the Commonwealth Club Medal in Californiana, and the David R. Brower Award for Service in the Field of Conservation.
Dr. Juliet Lamont is a founder and partner of the environmental consulting practice, Creekcats Environmental Partners LLC, and holds an MS in Wildland Resource Science and a PhD in Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley. She focuses on advancing ecosystem-based strategies for biodiversity restoration, climate resilience, and sustainable development. She advocates for the use of nature-based and “nature positive” solutions as a cornerstone for multi-benefit protection and restoration strategies.
Daniela Peña Corvillon is a Chilean Architect who holds an MLA in Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley (2013). She focuses on design and restoration of natural ecological functions at the interface of human and wild spaces. Daniela works at John Northmore Roberts & Associates in Berkeley, where she plans, designs, and manages various-scale projects that integrate human uses into natural areas, and restore natural functions in the urban environment, in California and elsewhere in the US and abroad.