The role of collaborative planning in environmental management: the North American experience.

Environmental and natural resource planning is in the midst of a fundamental change. The demands of "wicked problems" characterized by complexity and uncertainty--combined with the growing conflict between competing stakeholders over values and resources--has challenged traditional planning models. In response to these challenges, a new civics-based model of planning is emerging that delegates responsibility for planning directly to stakeholders who engage in face-to-face negotiations to seek consensus solutions to common problems. This new model, termed collaborative planning (CP) of shared decision making (SDM), is increasingly used for land use and watershed planning in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Advocates cite numerous advantages of CP including the increased likelihood of developing and implementing a plan that is in the public interest and generating additional "social capital" benefits such as improved stakeholder relationships. However, while collaborative planning is widely advocated and increasingly employed, it is rarely evaluated systematically to assess it's ability to realize alleged benefits. The purpose of this volume of Environments is to help address this deficiency in the literature by assessing the theory and practice of collaborative planning in North America.

The first article in the volume by Gunton and Day describes the emergence of collaborative planning as a logical evolution of advocacy and mediation planning models, which developed in response to demands for increased public participation. Gunton and Day review arguments for and against collaborative planning. Then they review recent evaluations of CP, which they conclude provide strong empirical documentation of the merits of collaborative planning relative to other planning models. Gunton and Day conclude by identifying ten keys to successful management of collaborative processes. These include:

* determining the suitability of a planning issue for collaborative planning

* ensuring inclusive representation of stakeholders

* providing clear ground rules

* reducing inequities among stakeholders

* ensuring accountability of the process

* maintaining flexibility

* providing effective process management

* providing sufficient time--about 4 years--for a process to work

* developing implementation and monitoring plans

* using multiple-objective evaluation of the planning process

The second article by Day, Gunton, and Frame provides an overview of one of the most systematic applications of CP to date: the preparation of regional plans for almost the entire land base of the province of British Columbia. After decades of conflict and experiments with a wide range of alternative planning models, the Province of British Columbia formally adopted a new, innovative collaborative model for land and resource planning in 1992 when the Commission on Resources and the Environment (CORE) was created (B.C. CORE 1994a). The new model was based on delegating the responsibility for planning directly to stakeholders. As of October 2002, 19 land use plans were completed and approved by the provincial Cabinet covering 73% of the provincial land base. With completion of the six plans currently in preparation, new land use plans will have been prepared for 85% of the B.C. land base. These plans have resulted in a significant change in land use, with protected areas doubling from 6% to 13% of the provincial land base and new environmental management zones being created that restrict extractive activity in 16% of the province.

Day, Gunton, and Frame present a comprehensive evaluation of the B.C. experience based on an extensive survey of participants. The results from the evaluation show that the CP process was successful in achieving consensus land use plans in almost all cases. Given the intensity of value-based conflict among stakeholders, the achievement of consensus land use plans for most of the provincial land base is a remarkable outcome that illustrates the benefits of collaborative planning relative to previous processes that were unsuccessful. The CP process also produced important additional benefits including improved skills, knowledge, and stakeholder relations. Participant responses show that these additional benefits were the most successful component of the processes, confirming that the most valuable contribution of CP may be the generation of social and political capital, not the plan. Day, Gunton, and Frame conclude by identifying major lessons from the B.C. experience for collaborative planning.

The paper by Susskind, van der Wansem, and Ciccarelli provides one of the most comprehensive evaluations of collaboration to date by analyzing 100 case studies of land use planning mediations in the United States. The evaluation was based on phone survey interviews with at least three participants in each case study for a total of 400 interviews. Two-thirds of the cases resulted in settlements and one-third were unable to reach closure. The results show a high degree of stakeholder satisfaction, with 85 percent of those interviewed having a favorable view of the process and 81 percent stating that the process was more efficient than alternative processes. The study found that having a mediator was key to successful resolution. Three types of obstacles to achieving a mediated settlement were identified: tensions among stakeholders (52% of cases), procedural obstacles (28% of cases) and substantive obstacles (20% of cases). Susskind, van der Wansem, and Ciccarelli conclude by identifying keys to successful management of mediation resolution processes.

The article by Yaffee and Wondolleck documents what they term a fundamental shift in planning paradigms in the United States from the expert, centralized model to the collaborative model. This shift, they argue, is due to four factors: decline in the legitimacy of experts and agencies, better and more accessible information, changes in the perceived complexity of planning problems, and stronger legal options available to challenge processes and outcomes. Yaffee and Wondolleck note that the new collaborative paradigm has been challenging to implement due to confusion over the role of stakeholders and agencies in decision making, the resistance of agency personnel to a change in their role, and the caution expressed by environmental groups which are concerned that getting involved in lengthy CP processes will tax their limited resources. Yaffee and Wondolleck conclude by outlining an agenda to strengthen collaborative planning by building institutional capacity, strengthening legal structures that provide incentives to collaborate and using adaptive management to learn from CP processes and make adjustments as required.

The final paper in this volume by Nelson provides a historical context for the emergence of collaborative planning by summarizing the evolution of environmental issues and rural planning practice in Canada and elsewhere over the last four decades. Nelson describes the decade of the 1960's as a period of rapid growth and growing environmental problems. The planning system was an expert-based, centralized model dominated by the federal government. The decade of the 1970's was a period of energy megaprojects stimulated by the OPEC energy crisis. The magnitude of these projects in environmentally sensitive regions imposed special stresses on the environment and generated opposition from stakeholders, especially First Nations, who were negatively affected by these undertakings. Errors in project planning, combined with deleterious affects on the environment, led disaffected stakeholders to challenge the assumptions of centralized, expert-based planning models. New non-govemmental organizations (NGOs) demanding more participation in planning gained strength as the legitimacy of "experts" and centralized planning systems eroded. The decades of the 1980s and 1990s were mixed. The economic slowdown in the early 1980s and 1990s led to increased emphasis on efficiency and economic growth while the increasing recognition of environmental problems stimulated the development of new concepts such as ecologically based planning, biodiversity, and sustainable development. During this period, NGOs were successful in establishing environmental objectives such as allocating 12% of the land base to protected status and new planning models based on graater stakeholder participation challenged the increasingly discredited centralized, expert-based models.

The emergence of more participatory planning models, according to Nelson, was a response to the failure of traditional planning models to manage complex environmental problems characterized by uncertainty and disputes over values and objectives. Nelson advocates ah inclusive, process-based planning model based on the engagement of stakeholders in an interactive and adaptive process similar to SDM. The main characteristics of this approach, which he terms a civics-based model, are: bringing together the parties known to have strong knowledge of, or interest in, a field of concern at an early stage; interacting closely with the concerned parties; keeping the process as transparent and flexible as possible; communicating, listening, learning, and adapting to accommodate relevant values, interests, and goals; working for respect among the most concerned organizations or actors; sharing of the research effort among willing participants; and making the participatory planning process more effective and inclusive by building the work around the seven key processes in the civic planning model.

The papers in this volume show that civics-based, collaborative planning has emerged as an attractive and viable planning model. Although more evaluation is required to define best practices, the case studies in this volume provide convincing evidence of the merits of collaborative planning and provide strong support for adopting CP as the primary method for preparing environmental and natural resource plans.

Author Biographies

J.C. Day, Thomas I. Gunton, and Peter W. Williams can be reached through the School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM) at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A lS6, or by email at their respective email addresses: jday@sfu.ca, tgunton@shaw.ca and peterw@sfu.ca.

Chad Day is the founding director and adjunct professor of the school. His research focuses on institutions for integrated land and water management and environmental planning.

Thomas Gunton is ah associate professor and former director of the School. He held numerous senior positions in government including Deputy Minister of Environment and Deputy Minister of Cabinet Policy for the government of British Columbia. His research is in environmental mediation and dispute resolution and natural resource planning.

Peter Williams is a professor in the school, and Director of the University's Centre for Tourism Policy and Research. His research relates to the use of land and resources for sustainable tourism.