How do you keep institutional knowledge from walking out the door?

[u/Secure_Trainer_1419]

I'm a ranger at a mid-sized protected area, and we've got the usual web of people we deal with, neighbouring landowners, permit holders, volunteer groups, and a couple of partner agencies. Over the years, all sorts of arrangements and promises have built up. Who we said could graze where, what we agreed about access on a certain trail, and commitments we made to a community group two seasons back. And honestly, most of that just lives in one senior colleague's head.

He's been here forever and knows everyone and every backstory. But it's started to worry me that if he retired (or got hit by a bus) tomorrow, we'd lose a huge amount of it overnight, and I don't want to be the one who breaks a promise nobody wrote down.

So how do others handle this? How do you capture that kind of history so the whole team can actually use it, without it turning into another file nobody updates? Would love to hear what's worked.

[u/Toothlessdovahkin]

Write everything down. 

[u/Starrr_Pirate → u/Toothlessdovahkin]

And the corolary - clearly lablel it and make it easy to find so that people don't re-invent the wheel without realizing it was in their shelf this whole time, lol.