Placematters06

Collaborative Appoaches to Western Problems

By Jonathan Weber , 10-19-06

Marianne Roose, a county commissioner in Lincoln County in Northwest Montana, has no small set of problems to cope with. The county is reeling from the decline of the lumber industry - as well as the asbestos crisis in Libby - and there is a lot of bitterness towards environmentalists who are perceived by many to be the source of the woes. Almost 80% of the county is National Forest land, and the locals don't like that much either. Growth and development is coming in some areas, namely Eureka, but a future as a bedroom community to Whitefish doesn't seem to appealing. It's not exactly an environment given to healthy, collaborative decision-making.

But Roose, the daughter of a logger and a self-described Pollyanna who gave a talk at the Placematters06 conference here in Denver, thought the depth of the problems actually represented an opportunity: continued confrontation wasn't getting anyone anywhere, and maybe the time was ripe for some bridge-building. So she spear-headed a collaborative process to bring together the natural resource industry, envrionmentalists, economic development folks, hunters, hikers and indeed anyone in the community who wanted to take part. She sat them all down at a very small table in her office - small tables make it harder to people to be nasty, she noted - and the result was a non-profit community group devoted to collaborative solutions to the issues facing the county, and especially its national forest lands.

It's too early to tell how succesful the effort will be in a concrete sense. But it's already accomplished a lot in getting people to talk to one another, and getting the Forest Service to take it seriously as a valuable local interlocutor. It was inspiring to hear an example of the kind of community conversation that's critical to so many parts of the West. Courtney White, another speaker on the panel and head of the Quivera Coalition in New Mexico, called this new mode of activism the "radical center," and I think that's a pretty good description. When people can get beyond their ideologies and pre-conceived notions and see that the person on the other side is their neighbor, they can begin to find common ground. And there is a lot more of that common ground than people often think.

On the other side of the coin, Ben Sinnamon, former head of the Smart Growth group in Hailey, Idaho, descibed how a coalition of environmental groups worked with the County Commissioners to deal with sprawl in Blaine County, but a lot of ranchers and developers who didn't agree with the consensus in that relative liberal mecca were left out of the conversation. It's hard sometimes to get *everyone* at the table. But now those ranchers and developers have gotten together to spearhead Idaho's property rights intiative, which, if it passes next month, will go a long way towards undoing what the aforementioned coalition put in place.

On a lot of issues consensus is not going to be possible. But what everyone in the room agreed on was that strong leadership is key to accomplishing anything - and kudos to Marianne Roose for stepping up. She's up for reelection in a few weeks and while I don't know anything about her party affiliation or even where she stands on many specific issues, I hope she wins. We need bridge-builders, no matter which side the bank they might be starting from.

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