Collaborative ecosystem planning processes in the United States: evolution and challenges.

Abstract

Natural resource planning in the United States has witnessed a marked shift toward collaboration in the last thirty years. This shift has been promoted by changes in the perceived legitimacy of agencies as expert decision-makers, a change in the availability of information and the perceived nature of the problems facing managers, and a significant broadening of political power in the U.S. combined with legal tools that gave outside groups access to decision making. The net effect of these changes has been to create a broad set of highly diverse processes that differ in scale, involvement, and level of formality and institutionalization. While hundreds of such collaborative processes are currently underway in the United States, their evolution has been challenging. Agency officials have found it difficult to sort out and play the variety of roles they are called upon to perform in these processes. The attitudes of leaders and line personnel have been problematic. Many environmental groups have been extremely cautious and concerned about the move to collaborative processes. AII have been asked to invest significant time and staffing--scarce resources in a time of fiscal restraint. Few have the skills to adequately lead, or participate in, collaborations. The U.S. experience suggests the need to: build personal and institutional capacity to enable these processes to bear fruit; maintain legal structures that provide incentives to key parties to participate in collaborative planning; and evaluate the progress of these processes, both to adaptively manage them and assess their impact on social relationships and environmental outcomes.

Resume

La planification des ressources naturelles aux Etats-Unis a connu un virage marque vers la cooperation au cours des trente dernieres annees. Ce virage a ete favorise par la modification de la perception de la legitimite des organismes en tant que preneurs de decisions, par une meilleure disponibilite de I'information et une perception differente de la nature des problemes auxquels les gestionnaires doivent faire face, ainsi que par une augmentation importante du pouvoir politique aux Etats-Unis, doublee des outils juridiques qui ont donne aux groupes extedeurs un meilleur acces a la prise de decisions. L'effet final de tels changements a ete de creer une vaste gamme de processus largement diversifies en termes d'echelle, de participation et de niveau de formalite et d'institutionnalisation. Alors que des centaines de ces processus de cooperation sont presentement en vigueur aux Etats-Unis, leur evolution comporte des defis de taille. Les fonctionnaires des organismes ont trouve difficile de comprendre et endosser les differents reles qu'ils sont amenes a jouer dans ces processus. On a demande a tous d'investir temps et effectifs considerables, ressources rares en periode de compression des depenses. Peu d'entre eux ont les habilites de diriger ces efforts cooperatifs ou d'y participer de maniere appropriee. L'experience des Etats-Unis demontre que les elements suivants sont necessaires: developpar les capacites personnelles et institutionnelles pour permettre a ces processus de porter fruit; mettre en place et maintenir des structures juridiques qui constituent pour les groupes cles un encouragement & participar a la planification concertee; et evaluer la progression de ces processus, tant pour en adaptar la gestion que pour determiner leur incidence sur les relations sociales et les resultats environnementaux.

Keywords:

Collaboration, ecosystem management, natural resource planning, dispute resolution, United States environmental planning

Introduction

Natural resource planning in the United States has witnessed a marked shift toward collaboration in the last thirty years. In 1970, public involvement in natural resource management called for establishment of hearings, "review and comment" periods, and other mechanisms for creating unidirectional flows of information from the general public to agency decision-makers. Today, such processes seek the active participation of many organized parties in shared decision-making processes and in implementation partnerships where "co-laboring" accomplishes needed tasks. Two decades ago, the fleld of dispute resolution largely focused on settlement of intensive conflicts through short-duration intervention (Bacow and Wheeler 1988; Bingham 1986). Today, the field is actively moving toward more upstream conflict management work, where processes seek to build long-term relationships and establish the groundwork for collaborative action (Daniels and Walker 2001; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). Fifteen years ago, natural resource management focused on management of isolated public land management units, where agency decision-makers relied on technical models to maximize production of a narrow set of goods (Wondolleck 1988). Today, management is moving toward an ecosystem-scale perspective where agency officials collaborate with a range of groups to manage for a broad set of values across a fragmented landscape (Johnson et al. 1999).

Researchers have focused on these real-time experiments, in order to understand the challenges facing them, and the ways that groups have overcome them (Coughlin et al. 1999; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). This article describes the forces promoting the evolution of collaborative planning processes in the U.S. and provides several examples of the ran9e of types of processes underway. By all accounts, these processes are challenging, and the article discusses a number of these challenges. To move forward, a robust understanding of collaboration as it emerges on the ground is needed. Collaboration is neither godsend nor evil, as proponents and opponents allege. Rather, it is a necessary but challenging way to foster wise and durable management direction, and empower the people and organizations that need to participate in management.

The Evolution of Collaborative Processes

What accounts for the changing currency of collaboration in natural resource management in the U.S.? First, the top-down technical expertise model where agency experts were to make decisions divorced from the hubbub of political life was increasingly seen as ineffective and unlikely. The Progressive Conservationists first established this model in the U.S. in the early 1900s in order to insulate decision making from the influence of interest-based politics (Hays 1959). An important innovation in its day, this style of decision making resulted in decisions isolated from the range of public values and interests, and ironically often uninformed, due to agency adherence to a limited technical base of knowledge and expertise.

Part of the change in perceived agency legitimacy resulted from expansion of public values in natural resources; a broadening of interests that made technical decision making very difficult. For most decisions, there were no optimal solutions, just options that balanced interests in varying ways. Agencies framed in the first hall of the Twentieth Century found their ability to craft decisions that balanced these interests limited at best. Indeed, the dawning realization that there were no ideal solutions to most problems undercut the fundamental legitimacy of these agencies.

The public gained a broader window into the inner-workings of agency decision making through legal mechanisms such as environmental impact statements and public review processes, and the view was not heartening. Decisions were heavily influenced by organizational culture and norms; a limited ability to formulate technically derived decisions allowed political factors to intervene. For example, Congressional politics heavily influenced U.S. Forest Service management of forests in the Pacific Northwest (Yaffee 1994), and resulted in a situation where production clearly exceeded statutory mandates for sustainability.

Legal tools such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act not only gave groups outside the agencies the information needed to understand the basis for decision making, but enabled them to challenge and stop planned management. Outside interest groups developed parallel scientific information that enabled them to credibly influence decision-making processes, and fight agencies and other groups to a standstill. In many places, a state of conflict-laden impasse emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, producing death threats and slashed tires, and a great deal of frustration and anxiety for all--agencies and communities.

Part of the change in perceived agency legitimacy resulted from the development of norms of governance and scientific knowledge that suggested the need to change management approaches. From Watergate and the Vietnam War through the Reagan and Bush years in the 1980s, the ability of government to act effectively, efficiently, and in a benevolent way was in question. In addition, environmental problems were increasingly viewed as complex and interconnected, requiring information and action from many sources. Development of the fields of conservation biology, landscape ecology, and ecological restoration highlighted the landscape-scale of most resource management problems and required strategies that cut across fragmented land units.