JPFreek - Index

JPFreek - magazine - Index

Land Use & Access
SUMMER 2008
64
The The “collaborative “
Process”
for access Issues
By By Del Del Albright, Albright, BlueRibbon BlueRibbon Ambassador
Ambassador
Do we need more group hugs, and will they solve anything?
Or will motorheads be having espresso with the enemy?
Collaboration (the collaborative process) is getting more To me, collaboration is a formula that looks like this:
Trust +
and more popular with government agencies stuck with
Faith + Respect = Solutions
tough political decisions involving public lands. Rather than
unnecessarily ending up in court, or wading through
countless repetitive hours of NEPA meetings, the collaborative
process seeks to find cooperation where competition has
previously existed. We should be fully prepared when our
Trust = confidence in the honesty and integrity of those
involved.
Faith = belief that those involved will carry through and stick
to their word.
chance comes to participate in the collaborative process. But Respect = to treat others with dutiful regard, and to treat the
here are some things to consider carefully before you invest
process with authenticity.
your time.
My experience has shown that this works just fine for solving
These efforts go by many names, depending on the agency the easy stuff and making plans and shaking hands when the
and the area – focus groups, collaborative committees/
controversy scale is relatively low. So yes, I hang in there and
groups, community groups, citizen’s committees, etc. It boils keep trying. I have just learned to not fall apart and break
down to bringing all interested parties to the table to solve a open the tequila bottle when collaboration finally breaks up
problem before it becomes a big problem.
and resorts to good old NEPA (and/or court).
First off, I have to admit that investing 10 years of my time in When you can solve a problem such as developing a travel
one National Forest’s “collaborative process,” and watching a management map for a large chunk of land by using the
partner of mine commit 10 or more years in a different Forest, collaborative process, you are likely to get a better solution
has made me a bit cynical. However, we need to be there, be that has fewer court challenges later on. Heck, you might
at the table, with smiles and hopes, and be part of this
even build some new relationships out of this process that
process. And yes we might win some ground. I just caution to help other projects down the road -- yea, I’m talking about
not put too much faith (or hope) in a process that cannot
motorheads having an espresso with radical protectionists.
solve all the issues.
(smile).
The basic premise is that all sides must be willing to work
If you can find a group with which to collaborate that
together and compromise. So is collaboration just one big
embodies the trust, faith and respect formula, you are likely to
group hug? To answer that, let’s start by examining the basic get a committed solution – one that lasts, makes sense, and
definition of collaboration. One description means simply to avoids a lot of wasted time (and meetings) later on. On the
work together; the other means to cooperate with an enemy other hand, you may have to be tenacious. In my 10 year
invader. Ouch. But by definition, the collaborative process
example mentioned earlier, the woman who was leading this
brings all sides of an issue to a common table to find
charge was fighting for her kids to be able to ride their mini-
equitable solutions steeped in compromise. Now that’s a
dirt bikes in the Forest adjacent to her home in the
mouthful. There’s a lot to this.
mountains. During the collaborative process, her kids