collaboration and public involvement

Conservation works better when local communities lead it, new evidence shows

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I received a link to this article just about the same time I was hearing about the re-Monumentization effort and the language of the Reconciliation bill.  Another Biden Administration claim, for example,  here “promise that they would summon “science and truth” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, climate crisis and other challenges.” And that raises the question of course “what specific scientific studies support this claim?” and “who determines what is truth?” What’s the role of “science” compared to other views and interests?

Here’s a link to a Conversation article.

And here’s the abstract.

Debate about what proportion of the Earth to protect often overshadows the question of how nature should be conserved and by whom. We present a systematic review and narrative synthesis of 169 publications investigating how different forms of governance influence conservation outcomes, paying particular attention to the role played by Indigenous peoples and local communities. We find a stark contrast between the outcomes produced by externally controlled conservation, and those produced by locally controlled efforts. Crucially, most studies presenting positive outcomes for both well-being and conservation come from cases where Indigenous peoples and local communities play a central role, such as when they have substantial influence over decision making or when local institutions regulating tenure form a recognized part of governance. In contrast, when interventions are controlled by external organizations and involve strategies to change local practices and supersede customary institutions, they tend to result in relatively ineffective conservation at the same time as producing negative social outcomes. Our findings suggest that equitable conservation, which empowers and supports the environmental stewardship of Indigenous peoples and local communities represents the primary pathway to effective long-term conservation of biodiversity, particularly when upheld in wider law and policy. Whether for protected areas in biodiversity hotspots or restoration of highly modified ecosystems, whether involving highly traditional or diverse and dynamic local communities, conservation can become more effective through an increased focus on governance type and quality, and fostering solutions that reinforce the role, capacity, and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. We detail how to enact progressive governance transitions through recommendations for conservation policy, with immediate relevance for how to achieve the next decade’s conservation targets under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

Now there’s at least two interesting things about this paper. It uses “Indigenous and local communities” as a unit. Here within the US, there seems to be great interest in empowering Indigenous communities (at least as long as they agree with certain interests) but perhaps, not so much, local communities. If a community doesn’t want, say, wind turbines, they may be called NIMBY’s. If they do want to produce wood products, they are not in the pockets of extractive interests. And I know that people in local communities disagree among themselves, as do Native Americans. And who wins is ultimately a political/privilege question. Still, I think this would argue for some kind of process that involves all these affected parties directly and transparently.

In the paper, conservation is a bigger idea than what we might think of conservation.. it’s kind of “everything good.”

This review builds on the idea that beyond its environmental objectives, conservation serves to support the rights and well-being of IPLCs. We wish to explore not only the social outcomes of conservation, but also the social inputs, including values, practices, and actions (specifically of IPLCs) that may shape the social and ecological outcomes of conservation. In so doing, we adopt a definition of well-being that is holistic and adaptable to different contexts, encompassing not only material livelihood resources such as income and assets but also health and security as well as subjective social, cultural, psychological, political, and institutional factors (Gough and McGregor 2007). All of the latter elements are increasingly considered as potential social impacts of conservation (Breslow et al. 2016).

(my bold)

It strikes me in focusing on local-led efforts, the Biden Admin 30×30 is following along with these concepts (perhaps “the science”). On the other hand, there appear to be political forces at work to assuage interests who feel quite differently about local processes and involvement (not sure what degree of Tribes), as per re-Monumentization and the Reconciliation bill. It will be interesting to watch how the Administration navigates these tensions through time.

The Smokey Wire Question of the Day: What’s Holding up Advisory Committee Paperwork?

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From Black Hills Advisory Board Meeting 2019 Newscenter 1 photo

Federal Advisory Committees are extremely important ways for the voice of stakeholders to be heard in government decisions. I was hoping that the Biden Administration, because of the importance of hearing from the public, and the experience of many appointees from the Obama Administration, would have a smoothly operating approval process for renewals and appointments (a girl can dream, right?). Folks tell me that the Black Hills Federal Advisory Committee, at one time the only forest level FACA committee in the US, has been held up for over a year (of course, there’s transition, but it’s not a surprise to the new Admin that FACA approvals are on their list of things to do..)

Does anyone know…

(1) Is this level of delay true of all FACA committees or only some? What about the ones you know about/work on?

(2) Is there a way for the public to apply pressure to speed up the process (it’s not COP26 negotiations here…not a trade agreement, nor even a forest plan; how many people really need to clear them)?

What Do You Think About?: This Forest Supervisor’s Wildfire Comments

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This article in High Country News seemed to fit with Sharon’s post yesterday, but also seemed worth a separate post.

In the view of this forest supervisor, the solution is more landscape-scale decisions (which we have discussed a few times, like here), and more categorical exclusions (which we have discussed a few times, like here.)  But his deliberate effort to cut corners with the public is getting pushback from all sides.

All sides agreed that more details were needed to assess the impacts and justifications for the proposals. They wanted to know where projects would occur, and how and when they would be carried out. In short, they felt like Mark was going about this the wrong way.

After receiving that community feedback — and seeing other national forests get sued for similar landscape-level categorical exclusions — Mark put a pause on the proposals. “Some people are uncomfortable, and I knew that coming in,” he said. “But I guarantee you get another (fire) that’s threatening this ridge with a smoke cloud that’s 30,000 feet in the air, I know you’re going to be uncomfortable.”

(To me, that feels a little bit like extortion.)

And then there is this – what I think of as the “bake sale” approach to forest management:

As part of the process, the Forest Service often offers large, fire-resistant trees — which are more valuable because of their size and tight grain — as an incentive for companies to bid on the thinning that, in many cases, is a sale’s true objective. “Something’s got to carry the load,” Mark said. “Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to sell the sale and you won’t get anything done.”

I suppose there is authority somewhere for the Forest Service to cut down trees because they are the most valuable, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a forest plan say this (and it’s sure contrary to pursuing ecological integrity).

Some interesting commentary on competing collaboration efforts in the article, too.

 

 

Three Interesting Webinars! One Tomorrow

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Three interesting webinars:

Environmental and social values in restoration: beyond commercial logging

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Many conservation and environmental groups initially became involved in forest collaboratives because they saw an opportunity to advance ecological restoration (including wildlife habitat restoration and resilience) with tools like small-diameter thinning or Stewardship Contracting. As time has passed, some conservation and environmental groups are considering or have opted out of forest collaboratives because they feel projects have focused on “pace and scale” or economic gain above other restoration priorities.

How do we define success for conservation and measure it – beyond just acres treated for fuels and volume produced? How can these concerns from the conservation community be better addressed, both in the collaborative process and beyond?

Panelists:

Michael Krochta, Bark

Tiana Luke, Conservation Northwest

Laura Navarette, USFWS

Chandra LeGue, Oregon Wild

Lessons Learned: comparing survey results from 3 pilot restoration projects in Eastern Washington

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This session will share the lessons learned, challenges, barriers, and successes of 3 large-scale restoration pilot projects in E. Washington. The session will begin with a presentation of the results of a web survey including comparisons of tools, concepts, and processes utilized to achieve project goals of increased pace, scale, and efficiencies, and recommendations for improving successes on future restoration projects. After the presentation, there will be time for Q&A and larger group discussion.

Lessons learned have been identified through a web survey responded to by 65 key personnel and stakeholders engaged in at least one of the three pilot projects. Each project was represented by a different collaborative. The following projects and collaboratives were included in this effort:

  • Project 1: Mill Creek A to Z, Colville National Forest

  • Collaborative: Northeast Washington Forest Coalition

  • Project 2: Manastash-Taneum, Okanogan-Wenatchee NF (south end)

  • Collaborative: Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative

  • Project 3: Upper Wenatchee, Okanogan-Wenatchee NF (north end) Collaborative: North Central WA Forest Health Collaborative

 

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Summer is just beginning, but wildfires are already raging in the West. Large and destructive wildfires are becoming more common, with new records set almost every year. Although several factors contribute to this trend, a significant one is the declining health of our nation’s forests. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages 193 million acres of land, reports a backlog of 80 million acres in need of restoration and 63 million acres facing high or very high risk of uncharacteristic wildfire.

While improving forest health and mitigating wildfire risk will require long-term policy changes, forest restoration projects offer a way to address these issues in the short term. By promoting landscapes with healthy forests and diverse forest types, restoration projects can reduce the risk of megafires and provide other conservation benefits.

Join us as we explore how reducing regulatory barriers, encouraging private partnerships, and opening markets for wood products can help restore our nation’s forests.

The Fix America’s Forests panel discussion will be held virtually on Tuesday, June 22 at 10:00 am MST with experts from PERC, Pacific Legal Foundation, Blue Forest Conservation, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Register Here

I’m interested in this one because of Chris French and learning more about Forest Resilience Bonds.

 

Monitoring and Adaptive Management in the Southern Blues- Webinar

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Modelled changes in fuels following thinning on the Malheur. Dr. James Johnston of OSU. speaking.

Thanks to Sustainable Northwest for hosting this webinar as part of the PNW Collaboratives Workshop.    I particularly like the way the partners have generated and answered science questions; what the science and technology studies folks call “co-design and co-production of knowledge.”    We’ve had several posts about the effort before about this effort from news stories, and Susan Jane Brown is one of the partners.  This webinar  goes into more detail about the monitoring, funding and so on (they are part of a CFLRP project so have more funding for monitoring, hiring scientists and so on).

Here’s the description of the webinar:

The southern Blue Mountains are one of 23 high-priority CFLRP areas that receive augmented funding from Congress to accelerate the pace and scale of forest restoration. Between 2012 and 2020, over $17 million has been invested to mechanically thin 230,000 acres across the 550,000-acre CFLRP area. An integral part of this exemplary landscape-scale restoration effort is a collaboration between the U.S. Forest Service and the Harney County Restoration Collaborative (HCRC) and the Blue Mountains Forest Partners (BMFP). Both groups prepare detailed Zones of Agreement documents that help guide Forest Service restoration work. Zones of Agreement documents are informed by large multi-party monitoring currently in its 7th year. This panel will describe the results of multi-monitoring and the continued evolution of adaptive management in the southern Blue Mountains.

Definitely worth a watch. In the questions, I remember one of the partners saying how important sitting down together and seeing each other as human beings over a beer helped in developing relationships and ultimately agreement. I watched the movie “Oslo” last night and was reminded of what she said, except in the film it appeared to be wine and whiskey. It’s suggestive, though I don’t know how accurate the film is.

Changing the Game: Using Potential Wildfire Operational Delineation (PODs) for a Better Future with Fire

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FACNET (Fire Adapted Communities Information Network) is one of my favorite information sources.  This article was originally posted on the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network Blog and is reproduced here with their permission.

The whole thing is worth a read and I’ve included some excerpts that give you a taste for it. It probably won’t surprise you that I like the combination of local knowledge and spatial analytics. Check out the video about the Arapaho Roosevelt NF and the Cameron Peak fire.  The maps of that fire reminded me that we can talk past each other when people write “fuel treatment in the “backcountry” can’t help protect communities” and in some parts of the country with current megafires, we actually don’t have a “backcountry.”
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Editor’s Note: Tyler A. Beeton and Katarina Warnick are Research Associates with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at Colorado State University. They recently took part in a well-attended February, 2021 virtual workshop hosted by the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s (RMRS) Wildfire Risk Management Science team (WRMS). The workshop focused on Potential Operational Delineations also called PODs. The POD framework is an emerging collaborative spatial fire planning and decision support tool. Here Tyler and Katarina share their perspective on three key themes that emerged from the February workshop. They focus on how PODs can change the game for fire operations, strategic multi-year restoration investment and planning, and co-managing wildfire risk.

It was clear from the get-go that we weren’t the only ones excited for the inaugural Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) Collaborative Fire Planning Workshop, hosted by the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s (RMRS) Wildfire Risk Management Science team (WRMS) held virtually in February 2021. Well over 500 people registered in just 3 weeks after registration went live, which maxed out the Zoom room capacity and forced the planning committee to close registration. This event and topic was something folks were ready to engage on. And there is reason why – the PODs process is an exciting and emerging framework that leverages local expertise with sophisticated modeling tools to identify features on the landscape – the streams, roads, ridges and fire scars – that have a high likelihood of containing a fire (see example below). Since taking off, the PODs framework has been developed and deployed in different contexts across the United States (over 40 national forests and counting). And while PODs were initially envisioned to support incident management, managers and communities have expanded the application of this tool in a number of ways. Several key themes related to the potential benefits of PODs emerged from the workshop, here are three.

PODs network on the Pike San Isabel National Forests. Fire managers deliberate and hand-draw effective control lines based on their local knowledge and spatial analytical tools. The control lines are then digitized to develop the PODs network seen here.

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Shifting strategy from random acts of restoration to a targeted approach

Several individuals emphasized that the current model of ‘stands and compartments’ vegetation management where ‘random acts of restoration’ occur opportunistically on the landscape have been largely unsuccessful at managing wildfire at scale. Big, bad fires are still happening and worsening, and the social and ecological impacts are significant. Panelists and participants noted that PODs provide a framework to shift our strategy to long-term, landscape-scale treatment prioritization. The scale of actions needed to restore fire-adapted ecosystems is immense, and it is impractical to treat the entire landscape. Using the adage ‘the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at time,’ one panelist suggested the need to strategically restore landscapes one POD at a time. Doing so could contribute to meaningful outcomes at meaningful scales, in this case changing wildfire behavior across the “fireshed”. A fireshed is conceptually similar to a watershed, though is defined as areas that encompass similar wildfire risk and where the identification and prioritization of treatments can modify wildfire behavior (Bahro et al. 2007).

The Arapaho Roosevelt National Forests leadership tested this new model of thinking. Forest managers worked with partners to construct a line of PODs running north to south slated for thinning treatments and prescribed fire, the goals of which were to inhibit fire spread and protect communities and other assets to the east. This line of defense was tested during the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire, the largest wildfire in Colorado state history. Although the fire occurred before the strategy was fully implemented, fire behavior was significantly modified in most cases where it interacted with treated PODs and previous fire scars. Check out the video below depicting the fire spread, dark red polygons depict previous fire scars. Blue polygons denote PODs that were treated (thinning, burned) prior to the fire.

This shows that if the management objective is to change wildfire behavior and risk across large landscapes, there is a need for a multi-year restoration strategy. PODs provide a useful way to carve up the landscape making it more manageable for restoration and more relevant for fire operations. In addition, PODs can provide more meaningful outcomes and a more useful and visual tool in communicating the “what” and “why” of management actions across specialists, organizations and communities. Lastly, the strategy of collaborative planning allows for a shift in focus from standard performance-measures that emphasize outputs, such as timber volume, to outcomes that promote resilient landscapes and communities.

Budd Falen: Standing Up for Rural Constituents

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Salon

Karen Budd Falen was the Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife in the Department of Interior for three years, and she left with the rest of the Trump administration, capping off a notable career in opposing public lands.  She appears to come by that view honestly, being raised on a Wyoming ranch and representing ranchers as an attorney (including the Bundys).  She reflects in this short piece on her legacy of changing the Endangered Species Act regulations and National Environmental a Policy Act regulations to promote more “local control” (as well as with the Land and Water Conservation Fund).

I take issue with her arguments in both cases that the laws the regulations implement (ESA and NEPA) were intended to allow social and economic considerations to play the role she has provided for them.  These statutes are both clearly aimed at the “natural environment,” and not local “custom and culture.”  Remarkably, she appears to admit that, “the listing of a species should be based only on science,” but then she has made it harder to do that with various changes in the ESA implementing regulations (which go beyond those she describes here in relation to critical habitat).

My fundamental disagreement with her and those she represents concerns this statement (and I suspect it may be a reason for differing opinions on this blog):

In my view, local elected officials should have more sway on issues directly affecting them than someone from midtown New York who has never faced the realities of making a living from the land.

The major gloss-over here is that endangered wildlife and federal lands don’t belong more to local people and their elected officials.  Her view that local interests should have more influence is not supported by either of these laws, and it is not the view held by most of the people that these resources do belong to.  Should the Biden administration not reverse these regulations, courts will have another opportunity to slap down the misinformation from her, and organizations she has worked for like the Mountain States Legal Foundation, that has led to ideas like “county supremacy” limiting how national forests are managed.

(Here is a little background from just before Trump decided she could not get confirmed as BLM Director.)

What We Can Learn from a Conflict Resolution Expert

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Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow of UC Irvine Law School

While we remain immersed in what some folks call “environmental” conflicts, there are other folks who are experts in the world of conflict resolution. Perhaps we can learn from them. One of these is Carrie Menkel-Meadow, a law prof at UC Irvine. Here are some excerpts from her 2010 paper “When Litigation Is Not the Only Way: Consensus Building and Mediation As Public Interest Lawyering“.

While Hampshire concludes that agreement on the substantive good is not possible in our modern, diverse, and pluralistic world/ he is optimistic that there might be one human universal: “fairness in procedure is an invariable value, a constant in human nature …. [T]here is everywhere a well-recognized need for procedures for conflict resolution, which can replace brute force and domination and tyranny.” Hampshire refers to several forms of conflict resolution, including both well-known forms such as adjudication, arbitration, and ”judging,,, as well as broader political processes such as deliberating, examining, discussing policy choices, diplomatic negotiations, and “hearing.” … When properly expanded from “hear the other side” to “hear all sides,” Hampshire provides a foundational principle from which to measure whether justice and the public interest are served in all political and legal decision making. Where Hampshire sees justice in the recognition that all conflict is inevitable and must be humanely tended to, those in the conflict resolution movement see the conflict resolution processes employed as at least one important measure of justice.

She goes on to say that there are seldom only two sides in public conflicts.

Environmental issues involve developers, local communities, who themselves may be split between pro-development employment seekers and environmental conservationists, a wide variety of disagreeing public interest groups, and federal, state, and local agencies. … Consider how often in litigation the “real parties in interest” include others besides those formally named as plaintiff or defendant in any given case. To the extent that multiple parties have claims, needs, interests and “rights” in a legal action, the concept of “hearing both sides” may be falsely reductionist in assuming that all parties can align themselves on one or the other side of the “v.” and that any resolution favoring one side over the other will solve the problem, conclude the litigation, or end the conflict

The environmental arena is an especially productive domain for these processes. Former Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, frustrated by the legislative grid-lock on some forms of environmental regulation and wildlife protection, championed a process he denominated “quasi-legislative dispute resolution. Habitat Conservation Planning empowers the stakeholders in a particular region to engage in trades and negotiations and to set standards for preservation of species not protected by the binary approach of current legislation. Environmental problems over natural resource use cannot be solved in dichotomous terms and not with the time-consuming processes of litigation or legislation. ”New governmental processes, involve all the stakeholders and to manage a variety of targeted, and in some cases, unique, creative solutions to problems. Such solutions may themselves be contingent and revisited with an agreed-upon process as scientific conditions or facts change.

Sounds like structured adaptive management. (my bold)

Size Matters (?):

Consensus outcomes are more likely to focus on the future, as well as the past. They are supposed to be based on underlying interests and needs, rather than arguments and positions. As the popular parlance goes, they are intended to “expand the pie,” or look for additional resources or new ideas, rather than to divide a presumed limited sum of resources available to the parties. In more technical terms, different processes are more likely to produce “pareto optimal” solutions than the assumed compromises of negotiation or “split the baby” compromise verdicts or arbitration awards. In processes where all the “real parties in interest, participate, there will be more than two sides to each issue and very likely there will be more than one issue to be resolved. Expanding, rather than narrowing, issues will increase the likelihood of reaching good agreements, because as game theory and other quantitative theories propose, more solutions are possible when more “trades” are possible. Although it may seem counterintuitive to conventional legal reasoners, the more disagreement about what is important, the better. Oppositional or complementary “trades” allow each side to satisfy their most important needs by meeting the most important needs of other parties. With more complementary, rather than conflicting, desires, we can find more ways to share things, an elaboration of the Homans theory of complementary needs.

This makes much sense, and I can see how that might go back to why collaborative processes fit better with multi-activity large projects. However, following this along, it seems like forest plans would be even better for achieving agreement, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it works. Or is it?

Other ideas?

Here’s a link to the Bruce Babbitt paper she cites. But I couldn’t seem to get it for free. Also this one looks interesting. “Bruce Babbitt’s use of … A Mid-term Report Card” by Tom Melling. Maybe someone with access to a law library could help?

A Unification Approach to Bears Ears: Let’s Swear Off Political Sharp Sticks in the Eye

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Conservation Lands Foundation board member and former Interior Secretary at a meeting in Durango, Colorado. Photo by Steve Lewis, Durango Herald.
Lisa Friedman of the New York Times wrote an interesting article about the top things the new administration could do for the environment.

Most of her nine are about climate change. Of most interest to us, is perhaps one she calls “Restore Wildlife Areas”

According to her, Mr. Biden has pledged to take “immediate steps to reverse the Trump assault on America’s national treasures” including major cuts in 2017 to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments as well as opening parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. He has said on the first day of his administration that he will sign an executive order to conserve 30 percent of US lands and waters by 2030.”

We’ll be continuing to discuss the details of a 30 x 30 goal.

One concept I’ve never heard political writers talk about is what I would call the “sharp stick in the eye” factor, which I think deserves more exploration. Bears Ears was monumentized following the loss of an election. We have heard from the same people that it’s bad for Supreme Court nominees to be picked too close to an election, but the same folks argue that it was fine to Monumentize an area where many elected officials are of the opposing party after an election. It seems to me that these positions are inconsistent, and I’ve found that inconsistent and or illogical positions are often guideposts to decisions that are ultimately political (in the sense of pleasing someone at the expense of others). Anyway, to me that was an intentional sharp stick in the eye. It will be interesting to see if we agree on the SSE (sharp stick) factor. I’d give Bears Ears an 8 on a 1-10 scale.

I don’t think the “uniting” approach would be to “immediately reverse” what the Trump Administration did. That would be just another sharp stick in the eye.. haven’t we had enough of those? What about sitting down again with folks in the area and concerned groups looking at a variety of alternatives without the drama of the Nationally Significant Focus by Some Groups as a Symbol. Certainly the only choice is not “these 2016 lines with these 2016 restrictions”. As Chris Wood said about the 2001 Roadless Rule, “it wasn’t written on stone tablets.”

Despite the fears, we didn’t see any oil and gas nor additional uranium development. Maybe, as we have seen, increasing recreation in the area would be bad for the environment, or people come whether or not it’s a Monument, or people overuse trails and spread Covid to locals. Seems like the last four years have had changes that could be considered in such a discussion.

Mark Squillace, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, tells the story of when he accompanied Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit to affected communities to discuss Grand Staircase-Escalante national Monument. The way his story goes, talking person to person with Babbit may have actually changed minds, or at least reduced the atmosphere of antipathy. (Of course, that’s Mark’s side of the story, but we don’t have another one, so I’ll go with it.)

Here’s my unifying approach based on that:
1. Send the Secretary out there (presence is a great symbol) as part of a public comment period
2. Determine to listen respectfully to the other sides, including elected officials from the other party (!). As the President-elect said, they are not your enemy.
3. Do a deal with the goal of stability.. “can everyone live with this?”

Actually, it sounds a lot like plain old collaboration. It’s also what states have to do regularly, which is why I like former western governors and DNR directors for Interior Secretaries.
It’s interesting to think about why it is that when the stakes are higher than at the State level, it seems like collaboration takes a back seat and “winner takes all” takes over. But internationally, we’d reject that approach in supporting peace processes. Perhaps national politics are some kind of anomaly. Not in a good way.

I ran across this article from only five years ago from the Durango Herald on Babbitt’s then-current activities:

The pushback from the energy production industry is a major obstacle, but Babbitt said he has long held the belief that the two, preservation and industry, can co-exist.

“How many of you know, that there is gas production at the Canyon of the Ancients?” Babbitt asked the crowd of about 30 members and non-members. “The opponent says you’re taking things off the slate of use and production, that the land is just being set aside for weak environmentalists. But (oil and gas) can be managed with minimal impact. It is possible to make them work together.

And one reason the BLM is taking such good care of that place is because they’re looking over their shoulder,” he said. “That’s the model for the entire West, and it began right here in Durango.”

I think by “they” in the last sentence Babbitt meant local people given the context. Also Babbitt talks about BLM’s National Conservation Lands which sounds like it could be an alternative to monumentizing, especially when an Administration starts with enough time for such a process.

Administrative and Judicial Review Opportunities for Collaborators: Webinar with Susan Jane Brown

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Susan Jane Brown posted about this webinar a while back. I was driving and listened in, except for when the call dropped, so I missed some of the Q&A. I thought Susan Jane Brown did an excellent job of explaining how cooperative groups can get involved, among a variety of other topics. She was clear, accurate and easy to understand in explaining a complex topic- not an easy thing to do. Sustainable Northwest put on the webinar, so thanks to them!

Here’s a link to the webinar.
Here’s Susan’s white paper
So.. how can collaborative groups get involved in litigation?

She has an informative discussion about the roles and difficulties of collaboratives becoming Amicus curiae and even how to hire an attorney.

In general, some things collaborative groups may want to consider when retaining a lawyer include:
• Cost. Pro bono and reduced cost attorneys are not the norm, and most lawyers will want to be paid for their representation. As mentioned previously, most private attorneys charge their clients based on hourly rates, and will vary based on experience, expertise, and location (for example, an attorney in John Day, Oregon who does not specialize in environmental litigation and recently graduated from law school will charge a much different rate than a Washington, DC lawyer who has been practicing natural resources law before the Supreme Court for 40 years). You should always ask prospective attorneys about their hourly rates.

• Expertise. Experience with federal environmental law is extremely useful in litigation of the type discussed in this memo, but not necessary. Simply because a prospective attorney has little experience with environmental or natural resources law does not mean they will not be able to competently and zealously represent a collaborative group in litigation. Nevertheless, familiarity with the issues common to this type of litigation is a relevant consideration.

• Scope of representation. When engaging an attorney, it is critical to know what you are getting for your money and time. Will the attorney represent the collaborative group in just the district court, or on appeal if the Forest Service loses the case? Will the attorney engage in any post-litigation work, such as review of settlement agreements? What happens if the attorney puts in more work than expected: is the collaborative group responsible for paying the attorney for that additional work? Must the collaborative group pay for any time the attorney’s clerk spends writing a brief? These are some of the questions you should ask prospective attorneys about what they will be doing for your collaborative group. After these discussions, your attorney will prepare an attorney-client representation agreement that will set out in writing the rights and responsibilities of both the client and the attorney.

• Personality. As collaborative groups know, it is all about relationships. Whether you like and can get along with a prospective attorney is an extremely important consideration, given that you may be spending substantial time with that person, not to mention paying them for an important service: representing you on an issue in which you are heavily invested. Someone may be an excellent attorney but an impossible person.

It all sounds very expensive (and difficult to become an effective Amicus curiae). I wonder whether collaborative groups have approached foundations about support for legal costs? I know the larger foundations do fund environmental groups. I also wonder if when the policy landscape favors litigation as a policy tool, policies tend to be unduly influenced by well-intentioned but distant rich people?