COLLABORATION AND LOCAL NATURAL RESOURCE PLANNING: IS THEORY RUNNING AHEAD OF PRACTICE?

Managing natural resources for the common good is a thorny issue, particularly when private lands are involved. All levels of government and the private sector continue to grapple with this issue, struggling to find the right balance between public and private interests in land. To reconcile these diverse interests, there has been a growing trend toward more inclusive, participatory efforts to involve multiple stakeholders in local land use planning decisions. This collaborative, community based model has become an important cornerstone for a rapidly increasing number of federal, state, and local natural resource and environmental programs addressing wetlands, wildlife, endangered species, water quality and other watershed management concerns. In theory, a collaborative approach is a logical framework for decision-making and action, and the benefits of this approach are touted in the academic literature and popular press. As the practice of participatory planning accelerates, however, it must be matched by rigorous evaluation “on-the-ground.” Responding to this call for better empirical analysis, a growing number of studies offer criteria against which collaborative efforts can be evaluated in practice. While recent studies have led to a better understanding of the process of collaboration, few empirical studies focus on both the social and environmental outcomes of collaborative natural resource planning. To bridge this gap between theory and practice, my research will use an integrated performance evaluation framework to investigate and link the process and outputs of the Vernal Pool Working Group, a government-initiated collaborative planning effort in Maine, with social and environmental outcomes. Determining whether collaborative efforts yield the results modeled, planned, and anticipated is critical, and evaluation is necessary both to guide future efforts and policies and to identify variables associated with success and failure.