Introduction
The US Forest Service has a new chief. His name
is Mike Dombeck and he replaced Jack Ward Thomas last January. And in
the nine months or so that he has been in office, he's yet to utter
the words 'ecosystem management' in any official policy statement. Instead,
he refers to something that he calls 'collaborative stewardship.' Now
there are some out there who suggest that the US Forest Service has
a random word generator in the chief's office, and that each new chief
gets one spin of the dial or one push of the button and the catchy new
phrase for his term pops out. In the 1960s, 'multiple use sustained
yield' was the catchy phrase of the day. Dale Robertson got 'new perspectives'.
Jack Thomas won 'ecosystem management'. Now, Mike Dombeck gets 'collaborative
stewardship.' Critics suggest that basically these are just new labels
being put on the same old thing. But, I think that in Jack Thomas' case,
and now in Mike Dombeck's as well, there is a significant and quite
new, intent behind these words.
How does Mike Dombeck's 'collaborative stewardship'
differ from Thomas' 'ecosystem management'? I think it's in its emphasis
on moving away from the image of the agency--the feds, the scientists,
them--managing an ecosystem in isolation and towards the recognition
that effective stewardship, in fact, can only occur if all of the pieces
of puzzle are put together. Dombeck's emphasis is on building the bridges
between the scientists, the land managers, the ranchers, the farmers,
the timber companies, the environmentalists, the communities, the campers,
the hikers, the anglers, the loggers. Bridges that will allow informed
decisions to be made and evaluated in an ongoing and adaptive and credible
manner. We are all in this together. We all have a stake. We all have
something to contribute. Something to learn. That we all need each other
in order for this to work. That's collaborative stewardship, even if
Dombeck doesn't use the words 'effective ecosystem management' as its
core objective. So, working together rather than at cross purposes and
in isolation, that sounds good. But that's much easier said than done.
Humans are not known for their propensity to cooperate. Just pick up
the newspaper on a given day and you will see plenty of evidence to
the contrary. So, how can we accomplish this thing called collaboration
so that effective ecosystem management can be realized? This is the
subject that I want to spend my time speaking to this afternoon. The
collaborative dimension of ecosystem management.
Applying Collaboration to Ecosystem Management
It's quite easy to suggest that everyone should
collaborate but there are a lot of obstacles in the way of such behavior.
We have government agencies at the federal and state levels with conflicting
objectives, conflicting procedures and management approaches, and conflicting
norms of behavior. The humility that Jerry Franklin suggested was needed
this morning is not in much evidence in today's federal and state agencies.
We have interest groups with narrowly defined objectives and who, strategically
in our political process, have no incentive to try to see the other
side of an issue. We have an extreme level of distrust and animosity
that has built up between and among groups and agencies over the past
several decades. And we live in a very adversarial society. The most
litigious on the face of the earth. Conflicting agencies and groups
don't sit down and discuss their differences. They sue each other. So
the notion of collaboration, working together, is not something that
is readily embraced or easily instituted. Nonetheless, despite all of
the obstacles that impede it, collaboration is one of the defining characteristics
of most ecosystem management efforts underway today. Why?
A picture is worth a thousand words and I think
that this slide captures quite vividly why collaboration among diverging
interests has emerged as a common characteristic shared by most ecosystem
management efforts. This is the land ownership pattern of the half million
acre Applegate Watershed in southwestern Oregon. You can see the classic
checkerboard pattern that is so prevalent in the western United states
with public and private land intertwined. Green is Forest Service land.
The Forest Service is an agency within the US Department of Agriculture.
Yellow is Bureau of Land Management land. The BLM is an agency within
the US Department of the Interior. Blue is private land used primarily
for either timber, agriculture, or ranching. You can see as well that
there are a number of different communities that make the watershed
their home. With the land ownership pattern like this, there is no way
that what one party does will not affect another in some way at some
time. There's no way that a problem faced by one is not or will not
eventually be faced by them all. If they want to live in a watershed
that is ecologically healthy and economically sustainable, they have
no choice but to work together towards those goals. And, in fact, that
is precisely what they are doing.
Collaborative Projects
The Applegate Partnership formed in the summer
of 1992. It was born out of the extreme frustration of the timber interest
and the environmentalists and other residents of this valley. Frustration
with the seeming inability of the federal land management agencies to
solve the watershed's growing environmental problems. Frustrations with
the tensions and uncertainty that the spotted owl dispute had introduced
to their valley. They were tired of pointing their fingers at each other
and at the federal land managers, everybody blaming each other while
the problems only got worse. And they came to the realization that it
was their shared responsibility to begin doing something about their
shared problems. The number of partners involved is now well over 100.
They meet weekly and they have since 1992 and together they have initiated
a number of aquatic and riparian restoration projects. They have conducted
a watershed assessment to obtain baseline data against which they can
measure their progress over the years. They have conducted an economic
analysis of the communities in the watershed. And they have fundamentally
altered the nature of several projects on the federal lands. Their objective,
as described in their vision statement reads: "To encourage and facilitate
the use natural resource principles, to promote ecosystem health and
diversity and to contribute to economic and community stability within
the Applegate valley."
If you attend one of their weekly meetings, and
you would be welcome to do that, you'll notice that a lot of people
are wearing this button. I don't know if you can see it. It contains
one word on it. 'They' in bold letters and it has a red line through
it. There's no 'they' allowed in the Applegate valley. There's no finger
pointing allowed. There's only an 'us' there. Their logo reads: "The
Applegate Partnership: practice trust, them is us." There are many others
like the Applegate partnership out there. Some are high profile and
well known. And others are quite obscure. Some are large in scale approaching
the magnitude of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. And others are quite
small, focused on a single riparian area or critical habitat. They all
go by different names. Some have ecosystem management in the title.
But most don't. Two of my favorites are northern California's Quincy
Library Group and Texas's Cameron County Coexistent Committee.
The Quincy Library Group sounds like an organization
of little old ladies who hold bake sales on Saturdays to support their
library. In fact, it's a partnership between environmentalists, the
timber industry, loggers, ranchers, and residents of the town of Quincy.
They get their name from their self-selected meeting place. The Quincy
Library. And the reason they chose the library was because you have
to speak quietly in a library. You can't yell and shout at one another.
It was their way of enforcing upon themselves a civil tone and approach
that they knew was their hope for success. The Cameron County Coexistence
Committee is a partnership between cotton farmers, environmentalists,
the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Environmental Protection
Agency. They had been at odds for years over the impact of farming practices
and, in particular, pesticide use on the adjacent Laguna Atascocha(?)
National Wildlife Refuge. What they said to each other was we don't
have to love each other--we don't even have to like each other--but
we do have to coexist in this valley together so we better start working
together on these problems that we share. So they formed a coexistence
committee. There's a wide variation in titles, scope, range of partners,
focus of interaction. There's significant variation in types of projects
undertaken and outcomes achieved. But what all of these efforts share
in common is a set of objectives that embrace ecosystem health and community
stability, and a process of interaction that is open and inclusive and
collaborative, and focused on ongoing learning and problem solving and
adaptation.
Promoting Collaboration
So, if collaboration is the life blood of many
ecosystem management efforts, how can it be promoted? There are three
key challenges that need to be addressed. Aspects of these three challenges
have been the focus of a number of research projects over the past ten
years or so by me, Steve Yaffee, and a number of graduate students in
SNRE. The first and perhaps the greatest challenge is getting the collaborative
interaction started. Taking the first step that gets the ball rolling.
How does this happen? Who does it and why do they do it? In particular,
what are the precise factors that encourage collaboration on behalf
of an ecosystem and how can these be promoted? What are the barriers
and how might they be overcome? We have conducted two different studies
that looked at these questions and it is clear that agency pilot programs
and initiatives were important triggers in many of the cases. Other
things like the presence of entrepreneurial individuals, escalating
problems and threats to an area, and a recognition among those involved
of shared goals and interests all play a role.
Building an effective process--once under way,
what are the key ingredients of an effective process? What do these
collaborative endeavors look like? What exactly do they do? How do they
function? Who is involved? How do they get needed resources? How is
information acquired and discrepancies and data reconciled? How can
they be focused enough to make decisions yet flexible enough to accommodate
new ideas, new faces and continued learning? Steve and I have about
60 cases of collaborative ecosystem management under the microscope
on this question of effective process. We are looking at how they are
structured and how they function and what elements of the process seem
to be the most important depending upon the scale, focus, and composition
of the effort. One thing that has become quite apparent to us is that
there is considerable uncertainty among resource managers about what
they should be doing in a collaborative context. The BLM representative
to the Applegate partnership said to us, "the process is a kind of awkward
dance that none of us know the steps to." And the Fish and Wildlife
Service representative to the Cameron County Coexistence Committee commented,
"I didn't know what I was doing." Collaborative problem solving is a
different approach than the regulatory two by four to the side of the
head. And it takes a different mind set. As much as we are taught the
principles of cooperation and collaboration in kindergarten, the fact
remains that we don't do it very well. We aren't very good at it. And
this is a big challenge to ecosystem management. Finally, perhaps the
greatest challenge is sustaining the collaborative interactions. How
can effective communication and problem solving be maintained over the
long haul? Ecosystem management is not a point in time undertaking where
the optimal course of action can be determined and parties can then
go their separate ways. It requires a commitment of institutions and
individuals to stick with it indefinitely, despite changes in political
administrations and available resources. And this is a difficult challenge
for even the most dedicated of individuals and organizations.
Sustaining Collaboration
I'd like to use the remainder of my time describing
one particular project that Steve and I completed this summer on this
question of sustaining the interactions. This was a study funded by
the US Forest Service. Between 1992 and 1994 we documented 35 success
stories involving Forest Service employees and non-agency groups and
individuals in a collaborative resource management partnership. The
primary focus at the outset in phase one was evaluating the factors
that promoted and impeded the ability of the agency to develop productive
working relationships. To build bridges with groups beyond the agency
boundary. In phase two, when we revisited these cases this year, our
primary interest was to see how they were doing. Had the collaboration
been sustained? If so, why? If not, why not? In two thirds of the cases,
the collaborative relationships were intact. In one third, the bridges
had collapsed. We found four key factors whose presence or absence in
these cases directly influenced whether or not the interactions had
been sustained: continuity of key agency participants, the agency's
commitment to the process, a compelling focus that framed the interaction,
and finally, a structured mechanism in place that accommodated and encouraged
continued communication.
In cases where the collaboration has been sustained,
the key agency participants, for the most part, were still involved.
This is not a terribly surprising finding at one level. But in another
it is eye opening for an agency that has a long standing transfer policy
in place. Employees advance in the organization through frequent transfer
to different positions that gradually inch them up the hierarchy. But,
human relationships get established between individuals, not organizations.
Non-agency partners do not view themselves to be working with the Forest
Service and they do not trust the Forest Service. They are working with
and trusting Seth Diamond and Sue Rolle and Gary Ernie and Elaine Zerold,
who just happened to be wearing a Forest Service uniform. When an agency
participant who is central to a collaborative process is transferred,
or retires, or quits the agency, that relationship is severed and it
takes some very deliberate and thoughtful actions by their replacements
to keep the interactions alive.
There are many dimensions to an agency's commitment
to a collaborative process and how this commitment is demonstrated.
And several dimensions were in evidence, both positively and negatively,
in the 35 cases. These range from simple things like having a forest
supervisor or a regional forester voice their support for the process
and, better yet, providing the resources necessary to underwrite it.
And, moreover, providing the necessary latitude and flexibility within
existing procedures to cut across budget lines and programmatic areas--things
that have to happen if ecosystem management is to be viable. Where commitment
faltered or was withdrawn, the collaborative process collapsed. We observed
this in a number of different ways. People were told to go forth and
do something new and experimental but were still expected to meet the
same old targets and outputs. At other times the lack of agency commitment
undermined the process when the agency failed to follow through with
its agreements and promises. And finally, when there was an obvious
lack of respect for the integrity of the process; where the agency participated
with one foot in the door and one foot out. And at times, unilaterally
rather than collaboratively making decisions that affected project areas.
These kinds of actions are evidence of a lack of understanding of the
concept of collaboration and what it means to commit to pursuing that
path.
Any of you who have followed the recent saga
of the Quincy Library Group are well aware of what happens to a collaboration
when agency commitment is lacking. You would be hard pressed to find
a national forest or ecosystem out there that is not compelling in some
way. Either in its splendor, its unique attributes, or its pressing
problems. But not all the processes that we studied were able to capture
and articulate an objective or a vision that all parties were compelled
by and that motivated their continued involvement. Those who were able
to define a strong sense of place, jointly develop a shared vision for
that place, or frame a pressing problem that demanded attention, were
the cases that were sustained. Visible, on the ground progress was also
an important motivating factor. Not only was it a place or a problem
that people cared about, but moreover, they could actually do something.
They could make a difference. Abstraction was clearly the kiss of death
in some of the cases.
Finally, the presence of a structured, predictable,
and understood mechanism that accommodated and encouraged ongoing communication
between those involved clearly helped to sustain the collaboration.
Whether it be an individual designated as coordinator, a formal memorandum
of understanding, formal advisory counsels, or scheduled meetings that
were predictable, inclusive and meaningful. So, continuity, agency commitment,
a compelling focus, and a set context within which communication is
maintained--these are some of the things that can make or break the
long term survival of the collaborative ecosystem management effort.
So what are the lessons from these experiences to date with collaboration
and ecosystem management? What are the implications for doing better
tomorrow?
Lessons and Conclusions
At the policy level, if we are serious about
promoting ecosystem management, then programs and policies are necessary
that recognize and are sensitive to the realities and the vagaries of
human interactions. Programs and policies are needed that provide appropriate
and sufficient incentives to collaborate and to do so honestly and with
commitment. Pilot programs and seed moneys and recognition and rewards
are needed. Programs are needed that provide the necessary assistance
to ecosystem management groups and the flexibility and latitude to try
new things and new ways, where we don't know what will come out of it.
We won't know for many years but we nonetheless need to learn those
answers. And that's a very unsettling concept for agencies that operate
under an annual budget that is appropriated by Congress where showing
products and progress is the magnet that attracts funding. Developing
skills and understanding is important. If resource managers feel that
collaboration is an awkward new dance, that none of them know the steps
too, then maybe we should start offering dancing lessons.
I'm serious. We train people how to do forest
surveys. We train people in watershed assessment. We train them in GIS
and in wildlife monitoring. But we tell them to collaborate. Go forth
and develop partnerships. Let's face it. Most resource professionals
got into this field because they didn't want to have to deal with people.
Effective communication and collaboration skills are just as important
as being able to measure the DBH of a doug fir. So, dancing lessons
are at the top of my list of priorities in ecosystem management. I think
that SNRE is well positioned to play a leading role in the context of
future executive training under the umbrella of this ecosystem management
program.
Resources. Building bridges. Overcoming years
of distrust and animosity and hostility takes time. And it takes resources.
The up front investment in developing the productive working relationships
pays off if long term collaboration and adaptive problem solving ensues;
if these bridges can then be traversed many times well into the future.
But it does take that up front investment of resources. On what? The
first step looks like a very risky venture. And, at this point, there's
no line item in anybody's budget to take the first step and then sustain
the efforts that follow.
Finally, we can't go down a new path, ecosystem
management, but expect it to take us to the same old place--timber targets,
resource outputs, etc. That's very frustrating and demotivating for
everyone involved. If the objectives of ecosystem management are different,
then the standards for review and evaluation and the measures of success
need to be revisited. And we need to think about this at the outset
of a collaborative endeavor or the collaboration will be a short lived
one. At one level, doesn't this just seem like common sense? Theodore
Roosevelt, when he was president, defined conservation as applying the
principles of common sense to common problems for the common good. It's
hard to argue with that. It's also very difficult to operationalize.
In the nine decades that have passed since he made this statement, we
have become much more knowledgeable about the nature and scope and complexity
of the common problems that we face. And we have come to appreciate
that there are many dimensions to the common good. Not all are material
in nature or identifiable in the short term. But it's the common sense
piece of the equation that seems to stump us the most. I think that
it's through understanding and supporting and learning from the efforts
of those who are pursuing ecosystem management objectives in a collaborative
manner, working together on shared problems with shared objectives,
learning together that we can begin operationalizing the common sense
part of Roosevelt's definition.
Please Note: If using
material from this presentation, please cite appropriately.
We suggest the following format:
Wondolleck, Julia. The Collaborative Dimension
of Ecosystem Management. Presentation given at Symposium "Ecosystem
Management: For a world we can live in." September 25, 1997. University
of Michigan, School of Natural Resources and Environment. Ann Arbor,
MI.
