Federal Land Management: New Forces for Collaboration

Published September 25th, 2008
Send this page

Many historic, social, legal, economic, environmental, and political forces are converging to support the growing use of collaboration to manage Federal land. Federal laws and policies in the 1980s created new natural resource rights and responsibilities, which people have used to pursue or protect their interests and concerns about grazing, timber harvests, water quality, endangered species, and changes in rural lifestyles. Juliana Birkhoff, senior mediator with CBI, is a member of the Collaboration Action Team and participated in writing the report "Federal Land Agencies Working to Create a Collaborative Management Environment." The team has created a set of recommendations regarding agency culture and leadership. They urge Federal Agencies to invest in funding in community capacity building and support of collaborative processes.

In many communities, changes in laws and policies coincided with changes in land use patterns and local economies. Competing interests and concerns coupled with new rights created more disputes and litigation. Many communities have been extremely polarized over land management issues and controversy led to legal and political gridlock. Environmental conflict resolution began to evolve at the same time. In the last 25 years, more and more groups and communities have turned to different ways to work with Federal agencies on land management issues. Collaborative groups began to form at the community level, and gradually Federal agencies began to support these groups and processes.

In August 2005, a White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation brought together hundreds of people representing government and private interests to discuss how to advance cooperative conservation. At that meeting, participants stressed that Federal government organizational culture needed to change. They emphasized the importance of building institutional support for collaboration. Conference participants specifically called for Federal agency staff to be “facilitative leaders and problem solvers”.4 Current literature supports this emerging role for government.

In June 2007, the Departments of Interior and Agriculture proposed legislation to enhance their abilities to collaborate. The legislation was designed to clarify jurisdictions, strengthen the authority to fund partnerships, codify Service First and other cooperative grant programs, and remove tax and grant barriers to cooperative agreements. The non-Federal members of the Collaboration Action Team urge thorough consideration and passage of legislation to support DOI and USDA collaboration at the community level.

  • Improve the ability of Federal land agencies to engage in collaborative stewardship through legislation that supports increased governmental coordination and support of community-based, collaborative stewardship.
  • Expand and track the use of Service First authority, which enables agencies to co-locate and share employees to deliver efficient customer service and reduce cost.