From Personality‐Driven to Institutionally Driven Collaboration by the US Forest Service

• Author: Peter B. Williams,Daniel Silvas,Marcelle E. DuPraw,Andrea Bedell‐Loucks,Laurie A. Thorpe,Maia J. Enzer,Katie M. Lyon
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21148
• Date: 01 December 2015

C R Q, vol. 33, no. 2, Winter 2015 149

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21148

From Personality-Driven to Institutionally Driven

Collaboration by the US Forest Service

Marcelle E. DuPraw

Andrea Bedell-Loucks

Maia J. Enzer

Katie M. Lyon

Daniel Silvas

Laurie A. Thorpe

Peter B. Williams

 is article describes an approach being used by the US Department of

Agriculture’s Forest Service to assess and strengthen agency-wide capac-

ity to collaborate eff ectively with external stakeholders, as well as stra-

tegic reasons for investing resources in this endeavor in an era of fi scal

austerity.  e article examines the role of the third-party neutral in

helping agency stakeholders chart the path forward, in the near term

and the longer term, and off ers refl ections on the characteristics of that

role that are most important to the effi cacy of the over-all eff ort in this

particular case.

The national forests in the United States belong to all the country’s citi-

zens, and a good number of those citizens want to have a voice about

how their forests should be managed. In fact, there are so many people who

want to have a say that making that possible and productive has become a

professional specialty in the natural resource management arena. Collab-

orative approaches have gained enthusiastic and widespread, though not

unanimous, support in recent decades, yet they can be labor intensive and

are not always successful.  is conundrum has fueled a growing body of

research into strategies for building collaborative capacity.

150 DUPRAW, BEDELLLOUCKS, ENZER, LYON, SILVAS, THORPE, WILLIAMS

C R Q • DOI: 10.1002/crq

 e Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of 1960 directs the US For-

est Service (USFS), an agency within the US Department of Agriculture

(USDA), to manage the national forests in a way that provides for numer-

ous types of use—timber, range, water, recreation and wildlife—in perpe-

tuity.1 Not surprisingly, this leads to many competing claims as to the best

mix of uses on any given forest.  e level of confl ict peaked with the tim-

ber wars of the 1980s and 1990s, during which environmentalists appealed

and litigated so many forest management plans that the work of the USFS

came to a virtual standstill.

In the years since, the USFS has been working its way toward a more

collaborative approach to managing the national forests. Agency personnel

have tried a variety of collaboration approaches, in both the fi eld and the

policy arena, whenever a line offi cer or enterprising staff er was willing to

provide this style of leadership to fi nd a workable solution to a challenge.

As a result, pockets of collaboration expertise now can be found through-

out the agency.

Leaders in the agency’s Washington, DC, offi ce have taken note of

stakeholders’ positive response to the agency’s use of collaborative forest

resource management and partnerships and their resulting ability to pro-

ceed more eff ectively with the work of the agency.  e cutting-edge ques-

tion is how to integrate collaborative capacities throughout the agency,

shifting the use of collaboration from an individual manager’s inspiration

to an option routinely considered by all agency personnel as a means of

getting things done. As indicated in the “Purpose and Need” section of the

2012 Planning Rule, this recognition was a key driver for the promulga-

tion of the 2012 National Forest System Land Management Planning Rule

under the National Forest Management Act.2

 e Planning Rule, itself developed through an award-winning col-

laborative process, calls on USFS personnel all over the country to involve

stakeholders extensively in their forest planning and management eff orts

going forward.3  erefore, it is vitally important to the successful imple-

mentation of the Planning Rule to ensure that fi eld personnel understand

when and how to use collaborative strategies eff ectively. As the successful

conclusion of the Planning Rule development eff ort came into sight, USFS

managers turned their thoughts toward a strategy for cultivating that col-

laborative capacity throughout the agency.

 is expansion in collaborative capacity is particularly important since

the Planning Rule is based on an “all lands” approach to stewarding our

national forests and grasslands. “All lands” is a term coined by Agricul-