Evaluating collaborative planning: a case study of a Land and Resource Management Planning process.

Given the growing support and use of collaborative planning, advocates and critics are unanimous in their call for more research to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of collaborative planning and to identify best practice guidelines for effective use of the collaborative model (Conley and Moote 2003, Gunton and Day 2003). British Columbia provides a fertile environment for evaluation because it is the only jurisdiction that we are aware of that has implemented collaborative planning in a systematic and comprehensive manner to develop land and resource plans for the entire provincial land base. The experiment with collaborative planning has also been going on for over a decade in British Columbia, long enough to provide evidence on long term impacts.

Case Study Region

The region chosen for the detailed case study of collaborative planning is the Lil-looet region in the interior of British Columbia. The Lillooet region is chosen as a case study for several reasons. First, the planning process is relatively recent, thereby allowing for easy contact with stakeholders. Second, the region has a long history of resource conflict that provides a challenging environment for testing the effectiveness of collaborative planning. Third, the Lillooet region is one of the few land use planning processes that failed to reach a consensus, or near consensus, outcome (Frame et al. 2004). The only other processes that failed to reach consensus or near consensus are the four plans that were managed under a different process by the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) at the beginning of the collaborative planning experiment in the early 1990s. Consequently, analysis of the Lillooet process provides an opportunity to compare characteristics of a process that failed to reach consensus with the other LRMP processes that reached consensus. Assessing differences between the Lillooet process and other LRMP processes that reached consensus can help identify factors that contribute to success and failure in collaborative planning. It should also be acknowledged that care should be taken in generalizing from the evaluation of one case study that has a unique outcome.

The Lillooet region is about 1.1-million hectares and straddles the boundary between wet Coastal mountains and dry Interior plateau in the interior of BC (Figure 1). The region is rugged with a relief exceeding 2,800 meters between the highest point--Skihist Mountain (2,944 meters)--and its lowest point--Lytton (140 meters). One-third of the region is above the tree line and half is forested. The study area is dissected by several major rivers including the Fraser and Thompson. About 96% of the land base is Crown land administered by the province, with the remaining 4% equally divided between Indian reserves and private land (BC MRSM 2004).

The region has a population of 6,500 residents, half of whom have First Nations ancestors. The largest population centers are: Lillooet (2,700) and Lytton (334). By percent of total employment, the main economic sectors in the region are: government (38%), forestry (19%), tourism (15%), agriculture (12%), and mining (2%) (BC MRSM 2004). The major planning issues in the region are allocation and management of Crown land among competing sectors and jurisdictional control and ownership of land between First Nations and the provincial government.

Planning Process

The Lillooet planning process followed a collaborative planning approach that the provincial government termed shared decision making (SDM). The SDM process was initiated in the early 1990s in response to growing conflict in resource planning that traditional planning approaches seemed incapable of managing. SDM was officially launched in British Columbia in 1992, with the creation of the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE), which had a mandate to develop and implement a new collaborative approach to land and resource planning throughout the province. CORE defined SDM as meaning "that on a certain set of issues, for a period of time, those with the authority to make a decision and those who will be affected by a decision are empowered to jointly seek an outcome that accommodates rather than compromises the interests of all parties" (BC CORE 1992: 25).

CORE began to implement SDM by managing the development of land use plans for four regions of B.C. and by developing a framework for SDM that could be used by other government agencies. Simultaneously with CORE, the government initiated a process termed Land and Resource Management Planning (LRMP) to prepare regional land use plans for the rest of the provincial land base outside the four regions being directly managed by CORE using the same SDM principles developed by CORE. To date twenty-one plans covering 80% of the provincial land base have been completed (including the four CORE plans); four more plans, including the Lillooet LRMP, are in progress (BC MAL 2006). CORE was abolished in 1996 after completion of the four CORE plans and the land use planning process was managed under a new central agency, the Land Use and Coordinating Office until 2001. The land use planning process is currently managed by the Integrated Land Use Bureau in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The Lillooet LRMP followed the SDM guidelines outlined in a number of provincial policy documents (BC MSRM 2004). The key feature of SDM is to delegate responsibility for preparing a plan to a group of stakeholders who engage in face-to-face negotiations to reach a consensus agreement. The steps in the process are outlined in Table 1 and the chronology of the Lillooet process is summarized in Table 2.

On November 23, 1995 the provincial government made two important announcements regarding the Lillooet process (BC 1995). The first announcement was the creation of a new protected area in the Lillooet region called the Stein Valley. The Stein Valley had been subject to a longstanding conflict between resource extraction and preservation. Designating the Stein Valley as a park increased protected areas in the Lillooet region from 0.1% to 10% of the land base. The second announcement was the commencement of the Lillooet LRMP process. It is interesting to note that the announcement of a major land use decision pre-empting the deliberations of the planning table was unprecedented in the LRMP processes. The protection of the Stein was made prior to the deliberations of the process because the government wanted to ensure preservation in advance of an impending election that would occur well before the recommendations would be received from the Lillooet planning table.

The Lillooet planning table comprised thirty-four members representing government, resource extraction, environment and recreation, and other stakeholders. The Lillooet table combined representatives from a pre-existing stakeholder table called the Lillooet Community Resource Board that was formed by the local Lillooet community to advise on resource management and new stakeholders representing provincial conservation interests. There were also four professional support staff, a facilitator, and ten alternate members chosen to represent their constituency group if the primary representative was unavailable to attend. The government also invited First Nations with interests in the region to participate in the planning process as members of the planning table but First Nations declined to become full participants. Instead, First Nations were represented by a First Nations advisory group and one of twenty-eight First Nations bands residing in the region attended planning table meetings. The planning table participants received training in consensus-based negotiation and adopted comprehensive terms of reference that provided general directions, process structure, and expected outcomes of the negotiation process (LLRMPT 1997). The planning table decided to meet each month for one and a half to two days from June 1996 to March 2001 to develop a plan (BC MSRM 2004).

Although terms of reference had been accepted by the entire LRMP table, polarization between stakeholder groups started to emerge in 1998 when three subgroups within the planning table developed their own planning proposals (Mou 2003). In 1999 three options were developed. The major difference among the options was the proposed protected area, which was 12% in option one, 19% in option two, and 30% in option three (Jim Britton, personal communication, March 22, 2007). All stakeholders then decided to work toward a single plan, incorporating elements of the three proposals. However, the mining sector officially withdrew from all LRMP processes in the province, including the Lillooet LRMP, in 1999 because they concluded that they could not achieve their goals and objectives by going through collaborative approaches. The province appointed a replacement to represent mining interests, but the replacement was not an official representative of the provincial mining association (BC 2001).