Collaborative governance strives to address complex environmental problems by building cooperation and consensus among stakeholders. While there are many successful examples of collaborative governance, all too frequently collaborative groups come to an agreement in the meeting room only to struggle to bring their plans to fruition. What are the factors...
The Blackfoot Community Conservation Area (BCCA) was created in response to a degrading natural environment coupled with a weakening community. The BCCA is a community owned 5,609-acre forest located in the heart of the Blackfoot watershed in Western Montana. Fearful of development and the creation of subdivisions, landowners banded together,...
Groundwater is often misunderstood because of its subsurface nature. Consequently, policies intended to govern the resource are fragmented as is evident in the Supreme Court case between Mississippi and Tennessee. Here, disagreements over ownership and the scientific-hydrogeological scope of groundwater in the Memphis Sand Aquifer have led to an 11-year...
Research into community college governance has in the past centered on the formal aspects of decision-making of these institutions. These past studies often ignore the informal governance practices and policies that operate within all organizations. Staff perceptions of community
college governance have not been studied and possible disjunction between formal...
The Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative (SOFRC), the Model Forest Policy Program (MFPP) and the Rogue River-Siskiyou Forest Service (RRSFS) have a shared vision to enhance the resiliency of our communities and forests. In 2012, the Collaborative took the leadership role to engage in the Climate Solution’s University (CSU) Plan...
One of the greatest challenges in the West is the sustainable management of limited water resources. In recognition of localized responses to natural resource challenges, there has been considerable work in the area of adaptive capacity and collaborative governance to help understand a community’s capacity to manage change. This study...
Collaborative decision-making is often promoted as a means to achieve socially acceptable and enduring solutions to natural resource management issues, and one that holds promise for resolving “wicked” problems. However, success rates for implementation of collaborative recommendations are unknown. This paper explores challenges to collaborative salmon fishery management in Prince...
Forest collaboration emerged in Oregon about 30 years ago as a way to address increasing conflict and distrust amongst stakeholder groups and public land managers. The concept has spread widely, and forest collaboratives are now commonplace on most National Forests in the Pacific Northwest. These groups include a wide range...
In recent decades, watershed managers have increasingly turned to collaborative models of governance for water resource planning in the Western United States. By involving a wide array of stakeholders in decision-making, these place-based partnerships promise many benefits: better understanding of local needs, increased public support, and reduced conflict. Yet, many...
Adaptive governance is an emergent form of environmental governance that is increasingly called upon by scholars and
practitioners to coordinate resource management regimes in the face of the complexity and uncertainty associated with rapid
environmental change. Although the term “adaptive governance” is not exclusively applied to the governance of social-ecological...
