Preface.

Resource and environmental management are increasingly characterized by conflict among competing stakeholders over the use of scarce resources. Traditional planning models based on centralized, expert-based decision making appear incapable of resolving these conflicts and managing complex environmental, social, and economic problems.

In British Columbia (B.C.), the conflict over resource use has been particularly intense. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, British Columbia experienced what was termed the "war in the woods". This conflict between environmentalists and loggers was characterized by large demonstrations, blockades, and mass arrests that threatened the social fabric of the entire province.

To help resolve these conflicts, we began research on new planning models in the mid 1980s. Our research was supported by new agencies including the B.C. Roundtable on the Environment and Economy, the B.C. Forest Resources Commission, as well as traditional sources such as the Ministry of Forests, the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

This research focused on two areas: new methods for analyzing resource trade-offs, and new planning process models to replace the traditional expert-based system used by the province. Our work on new methods for analyzing trade-offs resulted in the development of a multiple accounts evaluation method that was officially adopted by the B.C. government to assess land use options. Our research on new planning models helped provide the basis for a new system celled "shared decision-making" (SDM). SDM was officially adopted in B.C. with the creation of the Commission on Resources and the Environment (CORE) in 1992 and the creation of the Land and Resource Management Planning (LRMP) process. The essence of SDM is to delegate responsibility for preparing plans to a planning table comprised of all relevant stakeholders who negotiate to reach consensus agreement on a plan.

In 1992, after the completion of our initial research, I was invited to join the B.C. government as Deputy Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks to help implement this new approach to planning. During the early stages of implementation, we were not optimistic about the ability of this new model to resolve the intense resource conflicts that had plagued the province for the previous several decades. Our modest expectations were confirmed by the inability of the first CORE planning tables to reach agreement and the ensuing widespread controversy over the four CORE land use plans prepared under the new planning regime. A subsequent intense mediation process by senior government officials in 1995 led to consensual agreements on revised land use plans for the each of the CORE planning areas. These initial agreements set the stage for future LRMP tables, which were able to achieve consensus land use plans for most of the remaining areas of the province. Given the intensity of conflict among stakeholders, achieving consensus, or near consensus, on plans was a remarkable outcome. The results far exceeded our expectations of what was achievable and provided a living laboratory on how to resolve environmental conflicts.

During the 1990s we continued our research program in the School of Resource and Environmental Management by developing an evaluation technique for assessing SDM. Initial results of the evaluations completed between 1996 and 1998 provided important insights that helped improve the management of SDM in B.C. Now that the SDM process for preparing regional land use plans is almost complete, we have embarked on a major evaluation funded by SSHRC and the B.C. Forestry Innovation Fund to assess how well SDM worked and identify "best practice" guidelines for success. Given that B.C. is the only jurisdiction we are aware of that has systematically implemented SDM to prepare resource plans for the entire provincial land base, the results of our evaluation will be important for assessing this new planning model.

Research on new models of planning that helped inform our efforts in B.C. is also occurring in other jurisdictions. Notable are the efforts of Lawrence Susskind at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues who have managed a prolific research program that helped define the field of environmental mediation. Julia Wondolleck and Steven Yaffee at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan have also managed an impressive research program on alternative planning models that has helped define the new field of collaborative planning. Concurrent with this work has been the development of a "civics based" planning model by Gordon Nelson of the Heritage Resources Centre at the University of Waterloo that has made key contributions to the new collaborative model from a Canadian perspective. Although theses three approaches to the resolution of environmental disputes differ in varying degrees, individually and collectively they make a significant contribution to the possibility of improved decision making in the future. They are presented together here for the first time.

Given the remarkable success and increasing use of this collaborative planning model by agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service, dissemination of research assessing the performance, and identifying best practices, is critical. Consequently we are publishing this special issue of Environments, which includes recent research findings from leading experts in the field. Three of the articles in this volume were initially prepared in support of, or presented at, a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on The Role of Biodiversity Conservation in the Transition to Rural Sustainability in Krakow, Poland in November 2002. This volume of Environments will be followed by a second special issue, which summarizes our research findings on the B.C. experience in more detail. We believe that this new model--SDM as it is referred to in Canada, or collaborative planning as it is referred to in the United States--is the most important development in resource and environmental planning theory in the past several decades. This new model of planning has a remarkable ability to resolve seemingly intractable resource conflicts and contribute to more sustainable management systems. We hope that this special issue of Environments will assist in the implementation and management of this exciting new planning paradigm.

Dr. Thomas I. Gunton, Guest Editor

School of Resource and Environmental Management

Simon Fraser University

September 2003