Mon Forest Towns: A Regional Recreation Economy Partnership Model in the Monongahela National Forest

Building the recreation economy in the United States is one of the United States Department of Agriculture’s top priorities. The Monongahela National Forest (MNF) in partnership with West Virginia University Extension and USDA Rural Development began engaging a diversity of stakeholders in 2017 to create a shared recreation vision for each of the eight counties and 12 towns surrounding the MNF. The resulting Mon Forest Towns Partnership has cultivated relationships across the forest and between stakeholders in forest gateway communities. Strategic partnerships have enhanced the economy and quality of life for residents and visitors, while sustaining the quality of the environment and society. Agency and community partners applied the collective impact framework to the development of the regional partnership. The first phase of the process (2017-2019) focused on initiating action by engaging agency partners and community members to build relationships, establish trust, understand the depth and breadth of the opportunities and challenges, create a shared vision, develop a partnership agreement, collect data, and tackle “low-hanging fruit.” Phase two (2019-2022) focused on organizing for impact with activities that included creating a shared governance structure, establishing a common agenda, and developing a strategic action framework. Phase three (2023-?) focused on sustaining the impact by establishing the backbone organization, creating an operational framework, building organizational capacity, and securing funding to continue to improve regional coordi-nation, communication, and capacity. This innovative partnership brings local partners to the table working collaboratively without duplicating or overlapping services. Challenges identified include providing equitable support to all twelve towns with varying levels of capacity and need, developing a comprehensive indicator monitoring system, and creating an integrated operational framework. Yet, since 2017, these partners have leveraged more than $8 million to implement specific programming for the Mon Forest Towns focused on accomplishing the goals outlined in the strategic plan. The Mon Forest Towns recreation economy partnership has served as a model to promote USDA agency and community partnerships to develop recreation economies.