The partnership between the Forest Service and Las Humanas demonstrates how parties can turn divisive conflicts into economic opportunities that benefit forest health. Overcoming long-term conflict and building relationships depends on leadership and a willingness to work together in search of mutually beneficial opportunities. Partnerships do not just happen, but rather require leaders within communities and agencies to take the initiative to build and maintain bridges for effective collaboration. Estrada noted, “You have to have a can-do attitude of whatever it takes to make the partnership work.” Amidst all the demands on agency staff, she stressed, that “You have to want to see the success of the partnership on a personal level, beyond your job…You have to have personal interests in making it work because there are enough rules and regulations that can prevent you from being successful.”
Dedication and determination are critical to building partnerships. Ramirez stressed that people need to “look for the common ground…if it’s a hostile relationship [between a community and an agency], it isn’t going to work,” unless directed steps are taken to change the relationship. According to Ramirez, there will always be stumbling points along the way to working in partnership, but, “you can’t fold up, there’s a lot of people depending on [you],…if your heart is in the right place…and the stars aligned,” things can be achieved that were never thought possible. To find common ground in the midst of social and environmental problems, it is important to stop finger pointing at people, accusing them of the problem, but instead to recognize the need to collaborate to fix problems. Commenting on the region’s scarce water resources, Ramirez noted, “When you have canopy evaporation that is tremendous, you have droughts in the equation, and then you have unhealthy forests. There are a lot of factors causing the drying up, and if we just stand there screaming that it is drying up and not do anything, [that’s a mistake]…That’s where we [must] take the initiative.” Together, Las Humanas and the Forest Service have taken that initiative to collectively address the region’s growing economic and environmental challenges.
It is also critical that those engaged in a collaborative partnership recognize that learning is a two way process. Ramirez emphasized, “the government learns from us and we learn from the government.” Referring to the Forest Service’s lengthy planning and decision-making processes, Estrada remarked that community members did not understand the complexity of project planning, believing the agency was “stone walling” and did not want to provide the community with jobs. Today, the community better understands agency decision-making processes like NEPA and willingly participates in these processes.
Short-term projects may be a necessary starting point to build capacity to work on federal projects, but once agencies have invested funds and time into training people and building management capacity, it is critical to keep new projects on the horizon. Ramirez noted, once contracts dry up, people go elsewhere to look for work, which “ends up undermining all the efforts that were done to put these communities back on the ground doing stewardship contracting.” He recommended one way to ensure that smaller contracts with longer time frames are made possible is to earmark funds for them directly in annual budgets. This may entail advocating for federal funds for small, starter or community capacity projects, while ensuring that when those funds do become available local organizations are in a position to intercept them.
To help communities develop and apply new skills in forest thinning and restoration, smaller contracts with longer time frames are needed. Ramirez noted, “You have to have contracts that are building communities up. In other words, you need smaller contracts with a longer turn around time on them to complete the contract.” According to Ramirez, agencies cannot expect communities to have the skills to go onto a site and use equipment successfully. Moreover, he recommended that to build community capacity in forest restoration, contracts should be structured so people can work throughout a year as opposed to on intermittent, short-term projects. He argued, “you’ve got to have a dependable source of contract; you don’t give them a two month contract out of a twelve month period, because the other ten months they have to pay bills.”
This site was developed by the Ecosystem Management Initiative through a partnership with the US Forest Service and the US Department of Interior. Read more.
