Community-Based Collaboration: Bridging Socio-Ecological Research and Practice

4 Effective Collaboration Overcoming External Obstacles

4 Effective Collaboration Overcoming External Obstacles Melanie Hughes McDermott, Margaret Ann Moote, and Cecilia Danks Community-based collaboratives (CBCs) have been lauded for their ability to bring together diverse, often conflicting interests to address intractable environmental and resource management problems collectively. At the same time, CBCs are criticized for spending years in discussion and negotiation without being able to demonstrate significant improvements in environmental conditions. Both participants in and observers of CBCs have observed that, despite years of hard work, many such efforts still fall short of achieving the desired environmental outcomes, such as improved water quality, wildlife habitat, or rangeland or forest health. The literature has documented well the many internal challenges collaboratives face getting people to the table and dealing with internal disputes and process issues once they are at the table. Yet in many cases, even though they are able to resolve those issues and come to internal agreement on needed actions, something still blocks many CBCs from implementing them. Often, this occurs when CBCs encounter external institutional obstacles —obstacles that exceed the scale of their influence or that are held in place by disproportionate power. These obstacles include externally imposed impediments deriving from established social, political, and economic practices, policies, legal forms, and organizations. This chapter examines the external institutional obstacles encountered by CBCs in their efforts to improve environmental conditions and identifies ways in which CBCs have overcome these obstacles. Specifically, this chapter addresses the following questions: (1) What external institutional obstacles do CBCs encounter that affect their ability to achieve environmental goals? (2) In cases where CBCs have overcome external institutional obstacles and begun to reach some of their environmental goals, what strategies have enabled them to do so? 82 Melanie Hughes McDermott, Margaret Ann Moote, and Cecilia Danks The material in this chapter is drawn from research conducted in three phases. First, from a comprehensive review of the broader literature on collaboration , we identified and analyzed thirty multicase (minimum of five cases each), empirical comparative studies of CBCs. We then conducted a series of semistructured interviews with key informants to capture current practitioner knowledge that might not yet be reflected in the literature. Finally , we conducted in-depth interviews of participants in seven case studies of CBCs that had successfully overcome one or more external obstacles to achieving their environmental goals. The subjects of our seven cases are the Downeast Initiative (Maine), the Elizabeth River Project (Virginia), the Jobs and Biodiversity Coalition (New Mexico), the Public Lands Partnership (Colorado), Trinity River Restoration (California), Wallowa Resources (Oregon), and White Mountains Restoration (Arizona). For this chapter we integrated findings from the literature, key informant interviews, and case studies, rather than identifying the multiple sources for each statement, unless it is a direct quotation or reference. For citations to the publications analyzed, key informant interviews, or case studies, the full research report by McDermott, Moote, and Danks (2006) is available online in the open access CBCRC Journal. The Challenge of Documenting Environmental Outcomes To identify effective strategies, we sought out cases and studies of CBCs that had achieved some positive environmental outcomes. We discovered, however, that whereas many groups had made progress toward their environmental goals, few CBCs have been able to document measurable and attributable improvements in environmental variables, such as improved water quality or the sustained return of a fish species to a stream. This deficit is in part due to intrinsic difficulties in measurement, in distinguishing clear trends amid environmental variability, and in ascribing causality. Moreover, the end goal of environmental change may take many years to manifest in a measurable way. Many CBCs have documented intermediate outcomes that are expected to result in positive environmental change in the longer term. Such outcomes include acres of wetland, wildlife habitat, and forests restored, as well as educational and policy changes with anticipated positive effects on environmental conditions. Many CBCs also engage in monitoring and evaluation, which are expected to provide an indirect benefit to the environment by allowing collaborative members and resource managers to learn about changing ecological conditions and the specific impacts of the ecological interventions they undertake (see chapter 3). Yet another outcome indirectly linked to Effective Collaboration 83 environmental improvement is the formal and informal networks of communication and collaboration built through repeated interaction among stakeholders. These relationships build social capital and political will, which can be of assistance in implementing the projects, programs, and policy changes developed or...