The Orton Family Foundation
asked me to participate on a panel at its annual PLACEMATTERS06
conference in October of 2006 to talk about creating
innovative partnerships between diverse stakeholders
to foster change in communities.
The panel “All
Together Now: Forging Innovative Partnerships for Change”
included Courtney White, the executive director of the
Quivira Coalition in Santa Fe, N.M., Ben Sinnamon, the
former executive director of Citizens for Smart Growth
in Hailey, Idaho, and was moderated by Ceasar MacDowell,
an associated professor of the practice of community
development and director of the Center for Reflective
Community Practice at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.
The panel discussion centered on our experiences
in bringing diverse interests to the table to address
obstacles to achieve goals and break through the status
quo to move planning efforts forward.
I was asked to participate because of
the diversity of my personal background and my experience
as a Lincoln County commissioner in Montana.
Lincoln County is a microcosm of the West.
It’s primarily rural, with burgeoning enclaves
of new development. The communities within the county
were built upon the capital acquired from extractive
resources, mining, logging and farming.
As a Lincoln County commissioner, logger’s
daughter and a wife of 44 years to a log/lumber truck
driver I am well aware of the polarization between the
natural resource and environmental communities that
has led to the demise of the economic base of Lincoln
County and lack of management on the Kootenai National
Forest. The Kootenai National Forest comprises more
than 78 percent of the land base in Lincoln County.
In February 2006, I was invited to attend
a meeting that was intended to bring diverse groups
and individuals together, to discuss finding a process
and program to accomplish something positive to accomplish
projects on the ground in the Kootenai National
Forest. This group has been named the Kootenai Forest
Stakeholders Coalition (KFSC).
For many years, I had watched our local
economy gradually decline as more and more small lumber
mills, and then finally our two largest mills, close down
in Lincoln County. The closures were due to the lack
of available timber from timber sales on the
Kootenai and/or the constant appeals that would lock
up the sales due to several months and sometimes years
of costly litigation.
As I watched the demise of the county's culture and
economy, it became
apparent to me that the polarization between the natural
resource and environmental communities was destroying
our communities and at the same time creating an extremely
unsafe and unhealthy Kootenai National Forest.
So, as I said before, with the Kootenai
National Forest blanketing more than 78 percent of our
county, many stakeholders were anxious to see if these
diverse groups and individuals could and would make
a sincere effort to work together.
That meeting led to the creation of the KFSC, a group formed to “focus on natural
resource issues, including timber, restoration, wilderness
and economic and ecosystem sustainability.”
I left that first meeting
of the KFSC with a
feeling of optimism and hope. There were 39 people at
that first meeting, representing environmental groups,
elected officials, fire specialists, mill owners, loggers,
educators, consultants, small business owners, economic
development directors, natural resource specialists
and individual citizens — all of whom expressed an interest
in finding a way to work together to find areas of common
ground, build trust and accomplish something positive.
In April, 2006, a second meeting was held,
and by that time 57 members had signed up.
I was asked by the Kootenai River Development
Council to facilitate the April meeting. I opened that
meeting with a brief statement, calling for members
to find common ground and to build trust among each
other. We decided that the KFSC’s focus would
be to design, plan, implement and monitor fuel-reduction
activities in the wild land-urban interface on the Kootenai
National Forest.
The group emphasized that the joint effort
to conduct fuel-reduction work would also protect our
communities and private property from wildfires, provide
raw materials for area mills and provide local employment
for loggers and other workers involved in forest restoration.
In addition, those efforts could address
watershed and wildlife concerns.
The attendees were urged to ensure that
the effort be a collaborative one, and that everyone
needed to commit to respect opinions other than their
own and not be disrespectful or confrontational in our
discussions with each other.
The group emphasized that the focus of
future efforts should be on where we are now, not where
we have been in the past.
It was reiterated that the timber wars
of the past and the “us-versus-them” mentality
of the past 20 years was a nonproductive blame game
that hadn’t solved anything.
At that meeting, the group realized the
need to establish 501(c)3 nonprofit organization status,
adopt a mission statement, prepare by-laws, elect a
board of directors and begin to work on preparing a
memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Forest Service.
At a meeting in September 2006, these
issues were voted on and approved by the membership. Today, the mission of the Kootenai Stakeholders Coalition,
Inc. is to demonstrate the ability of a diverse group
of stakeholders to define common ground by recommending
the implementation of projects on natural resource
issues, including community protection, forest and
watershed restoration, public safety forest health
and community economic vitality.
Since the KNF Stakeholders Coalition began
its work, appeals have been withdrawn and on-the-ground
projects have been started. Most of the projects are fuels-reduction
projects to lower the wildfire risk in the wild land-urban
interface and to restore forest health.
Little by little, we are accomplishing our work goals and creating jobs and a healthy forest — all through
the efforts of collaboration.
The KFSC
is proof that diverse interests can work
together, that they can and must get past the polarization
that has been devastating our communities and forest
health.
At our most recent meeting on December
14th, we voted to recommend to the Forest Service that it move forward on another fuels-reduction
project on the Kootenai National Forest.
It has been an exciting journey to be
a part of a new process with individuals and groups
who truly want to find solutions.
The KFSC has accomplished
much since its inception. It has and will continue to
be a learning experience for everyone involved. This
effort is truly a collaborative process in its purest
sense.
I have been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I believe
I am only a realist. The practices of the past and the
fighting and polarization have not worked, so it is
my sincere belief that we can and must find ways to
work together.
That is what the KFSC is doing. I am proud to be a
part of it.
The underlying principle of the group
is that while it is perfectly acceptable to disagree,
you must do so respectfully. It is okay to interact as adversaries,
but you don’t have to be enemies. You can find ways to work together if
you believe in the end result that you want to achieve.
Marianne Roose has
served as a Lincoln County Commissioner since 1997. She
is currently serving on three statewide boards: The
State/County Printing Board; the Montana Tobacco Use
Prevention Board; and the Hard-Rock Mining Board. She
also serves on the Montana Forest, Counties & Schools
Coalition and was recently elected by that board to
serve on the National Forest Counties & Schools
Coalition. She lives near Eureka, Mont.
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