The
Governor's Forum on Environment and Natural Resources:
Learning
to Build Agreement for Wyoming's Future
June 19-20, 2000
Holiday
Inn
Riverton,
Wyoming
How we
can involve local people in solving local problems while also addressing
state-wide and national perspectives?
How
can communities use collaborative decision making to help find agreement on
natural resource issues?
Making land
use, economic development, environmental, and other public decisions is
increasingly difficult. Public
officials are frequently unable to offer proposals or take action on these
issues without being challenged in court.
Individuals and groups affected by policy and management decisions are
often frustrated by both the decision-making process and its outcomes.
The
Governor’s Forum on Environment and Natural Resources focused on how we can
build understanding and agreement on these issues in Wyoming. The goals of the forum were to:
§
Evaluate
and improve understanding of different ways to make public decisions. Assess when community-based
collaborative approaches are appropriate for a given situation. Case studies will be shared from throughout Wyoming and the West.
§
Discuss
the different approaches such as Coordinated Resource Management, watershed
planning, mediation, and the use of formal cooperating agency agreements in
environmental impact assessments.
§
Provide
an introduction to the practical tools (technical, educational, financial, and organizational)
that help individuals and groups determine whether collaboration or consensus
processes are right for them, start a collaborative process when one is
appropriate, or sustain one already in place.
§
Create
communication links with other groups and individuals who are applying
collaborative solutions to common economic, environmental, and natural resource
challenges.
Forum
Moderator: John Ehrmann, Meridian
Institute, and UW Institute for
Environment and Natural Resources
7:00 am
Tour of the Three Quarter Circles
Ranch south of Lander, led by Hudson Elementary School students and CRM members.
10:00-11:00 am
Registration—Holiday Inn
11:00-12:15 pm
Luncheon
Welcome, introductions, and review
of forum objectives
Ron Micheli,
Wyoming Department of Agriculture
Harold Bergman, UW Institute for Environment and Natural Resources
Opening Address
Governor Jim Geringer
12:15-1:00 pm
Role Play: “Sunday Closing”
Role Play Leader: Dr. Alan
Schroeder, UW College of
Agriculture
During this session panelists discussed
the characteristics of collaborative processes; explored when they are appropriate,
how they function, and how they relate to other ways of influencing public
decision making including litigation and lobbying.
Panelists:
Bob Budd, The Nature Conservancy
Mary Flanderka, Black Hills Forest
Resource Association
Carol Hamilton, Open Dialogue for Open
Spaces
Dan Heilig, Wyoming Outdoor Council
Jim Magagna, Wyoming Stock Growers
Association
Doug Thompson, Wyoming State Grazing
Board
Facilitator: John
Ehrmann, Meridian Institute, and UW Institute for Environment and Natural
Resources
Assessing when Collaborative
Processes are Appropriate
In this session, panelists discussed
how to determine if a collaborative process is appropriate in a given situation
and considered barriers to convening a community-based forum, and how to
overcome such barriers.
Panelists:
Andrea Brandenburg, Homeland
George Helfrich, National Park
Service
Tim Morrison, Meeteetse Conservation
District
Dennis Sun, CRM Consultant
Steve Thomas, Greater Yellowstone
Coalition
Mike Sanders, Medicine Bow National
Forest
Facilitator:
Sara Flitner, Flitner Communications
6:00-9:00 pm Evening Festivities
Discussion,
Cocktails, and Dinner
This session focused on the Guiding
Principles for Successful Agreement Building and highlighted the tools of
different forms of collaboration such as CRM, watershed planning, mediation,
and the use of formal cooperating agency agreements in environmental impact
assessments.
Panelists:
Wanda Burget, Powder River Coal Company
Dave Hagenbarth, Beaverhead County
Community Forum
Larry Hicks, Little Snake River
Conservation District
Art Reese, Wyoming Office of Federal
Land Policy
Alan Schroeder, UW College of Agriculture
Bruce Weeter, Double-H CRM
Facilitator: Matt McKinney, Montana Consensus
Council
Components of a Successful
Process
In this session we examined the
steps for moving from designing the process to building agreement, and reviewed
tactics and strategies that contribute to effective decision making, such as:
Panelists:
Sylvia Gillen, Western Governors’ Association
Fred Lamming, Teton County Weed and
Pest
Ron Lockwood, Wyoming Game and Fish
Department
Bernie Spanogle, Wapiti Ridge CRM
Phil Shephard, The Nature
Conservancy
Facilitators:
Grant Stumbough, Wyoming Department of Agriculture
12:00-1:00 pm Noon Luncheon
Students from Hudson Elementary and Lander High
School
Facilitator: Pete Ellsworth, UW Natural Science
Program
Session V: 1:00-2:00 pm
Discussion of Applying
Processes in the ”Real World”
Building on the previous sessions we
focused on the basic skills needed to build agreement on complex, multi-party
public issues
Dr. Alan Schroeder, UW College of
Agriculture
Session VI: 2:00-3:45 pm
Implementing and
Monitoring the Agreement: Did it Work
or Not?
During this session, we considered
what types of challenges emerge in trying to implement agreements and discuss
the appropriate tools to meet these challenges, including:
§
Identify
guidelines to increase the likelihood of agreements being implemented;
§
Learn
how to monitor the implemented agreement; and,
§
See
how we can respond effectively to new insights, a changed landscape, or the
awareness that the agreement was ineffective in solving the problem.
Panelists:
Kurt Kotter, BLM, Muddy Creek CRM
Carol Kruse, Wyoming Office of Federal Land Policy
David Redhorse, U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Service
Jack Shipley, Applegate Partnership
Facilitator:
Dick Gross, Policy Consensus Initiative
Session VII: 3:45-4:30 pm
An
interactive discussion highlighting the lessons learned and insights gained
from the Forum.
Facilitators: John Ehrmann, Meridian Institute,
and UW Institute for Environment and
Natural Resources; and Sarah Van de Wetering, Chronicle of Community, Northern
Lights Institute.
4:30-5:30 pm
An opportunity for
informal discussion with panelists, facilitators, and resource providers.
The Forum
was sponsored by the Wyoming Governor's Office, the Wyoming Department of Agriculture,
and the Institute for Environment and Natural Resources at the University of
Wyoming; in cooperation with the following co-sponsors:
Bureau of
Land Management
Natural
Resources Conservation Service
Petroleum
Association of Wyoming
Policy Consensus
Initiative
U.S. Forest
Service
Western
Governors' Association
Wyoming
Mining Association
Wyoming
Rural Development Council
Wyoming
Section, Society of Range Management -- Coordinated Resource Management
Committee