Publication Abstracts

Sustainable Energies? A Feasibility Study of Conservation Credit Trading Schemes as a Tool to Conserve the Sagebrush Steppe Biome in Three Western States

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by Nathan Lemphers

The sagebrush steppe biome and its associated species, most notably the Greater Sage Grouse (GrSG), is under considerable threat from energy development. Conservation credit trading schemes (CCTS) have emerged as one method of mitigating wildlife or habitat loss while encouraging the strategic conservation of critical wildlife habitat on a much broader scale than has traditionally been possible. This paper 1) outlines the current on and off-site mitigation policies concerning wildlife and wildlife habitat currently in use in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah and how they are determined, enforced and amended, 2) summarizes the level of cooperation among the state and federal governments required to carry out these policies as well as the response of the energy industry, 3) gauges the feasibility of CCTS in the current political climate and 4) examines ways of improving the effectiveness of the present conservation protection system.
It will be extremely challenging to mount a ‘successful’ CCTS program given the complexity of the property right structures, the number of government agencies, energy companies and citizen groups involved (each with competing interests), the lack of data, the time scale for ecosystem recovery, a history of minimal public engagement in wildlife management, lack of political will, widespread unfamiliarity with CCTS and the fact that the GrSG is not a federally listed species.
Furthermore, significant differences exist among the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah with respect to their commitments to mitigate the impacts of the energy development on wildlife and wildlife habitat. The passing of HB07-1298 in Colorado with its clear and unequivocal directive to manage for cumulative effects on wildlife and the recent statements of the Wyoming government’s steps to conserve the GrSG and the sagebrush steppe biome hold promise for further change. Opportunities now exist for other states to emulate these progressive actions.
This report identifies five key avenues that policymakers might want to pursue.
• Using larger-scale, ecosystem based management to assess cumulative impacts and ensure best management practices;
• Seeking increased transparency, accountability and public involvement through collaboration;
• Building on the success of previous conservation banking schemes;
• Pursuing mixed ownership conservation agreements with assurances (CCAA) to overcome the patchwork surface/sub-surface rights in certain states; and
• Advocating more comprehensive reclamation bonds which integrate into larger ecosystem management plans.
The Cooperative Sagebrush Initiative, a public/private/non-profit organization working in the west to conserve the sagebrush steppe biome is currently advocating a CCTS. To present a more credible defense, proponents of CCTS should be familiar with not only the significant barriers which face CCTS implementation, but also the often underutilized policy tools available to the public. Underlying any conservation initiative must be a realistic analysis of the current policy framework and a long-term desire to build economical, ecological and political resilience.

A DIALOGUE, NOT A DIATRIBE. Effective Integration of Science and Policy through Joint Fact Finding

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Herman A. Karl, Lawrence E. Susskind,
and Katherine H. Wallace

While “decisions based on sound science” has been a credo of natural resource management and environmental policy in the United States for more than 100 years, science is still not independent of politics. The concept of “decisions based on sound science” is predicated upon the presumptions that science is a neutral body of knowledge immune from value judgments, science can predict with certainty and clarity what will happen in the physical world, and policymaking is a rational process. None of these is true.5 Policymaking is not an entirely rational process of identifying problems and choosing optimal solutions, especially when scientists must make value-laden assumptions and extrapolations in the face of highly uncertain data to answer questions posed by policymakers.6 What is needed is a way to ensure, politics aside, that our understanding of the workings of complex ecological systems informs public policy choices about where and how development should proceed, how natural resources are managed to ensure sustainable supplies, and whether and how to regulate economic activities that pose a threat to human health and safety as well as environmental protection.

Bridging the Divide: Incorporating Local Ecological Knowledge into U.S. Natural Resource Management

by Alexis Schulman

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For the past 100 years, natural resource management in the United States has reflected a belief that the top-down application of science to predict and control the
natural world will, in the words of Gifford Pinchot, the Nation’s first head of the U.S. Forest Service, “support the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of men.” However, over the past two decades, a growing number of critics have challenged
the technocratic optimism of this “conventional management”, arguing that the public should be more deeply engaged in the decision-making that drives natural resource management and policy. Part of the rationale for this argument is based on the growing recognition that Western, scientific management has discounted the value of local ecological knowledge (LEK), a system of knowledge developed over time through observation and interaction with the natural environment. Although advocates have expounded the benefits of using LEK, in practice, LEK is rarely integrated into the scientific assessments that drive management decisions.
To understand what affects whether or not LEK is incorporated into management science, this thesis examines: 1. What are the particular barriers to integrating LEK into management science? 2. When LEK is integrated into management science, why is it used and how are specific barriers to its use overcome? These questions are addressed through an intensive examination of two U.S. cases: the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan in Pima County, Arizona and the evolution of fishery management science in the New England groundfishery. This study confirms academics and practitioners’ claims that a major barrier to incorporating LEK is a “language” divide: LEK is rarely presented in scientific terms and thus it is difficult for scientists to understand its relevance or confirm its accuracy. Furthermore, scientific studies are often too complex for untrained locals to understand and thus engage with. However, this study also reveals that conflicting interests and values between scientists and bearers of LEK are not only common in resource management, but also significantly discourage knowledge exchange by embedding risk in the very acts of eliciting and divulging LEK. Furthermore, although individuals who are able “translate” between the local and scientific communities can overcome the language divide, interest and value conflicts are rarely overcome by similar translation. Instead, this analysis suggests that incentives must be created to encourage the sharing and eliciting of LEK and outweigh the associated perceived risks. Collaborative research programs in the New England fishery provide one such model. Based on these findings, recommendations for improving knowledge sharing and incorporating LEK into natural resource management are made.

Trading Pollution for Water Quality: Assessing the Effects of Market-based Instruments in Three Basins

by Katherine Wallace

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Since its passage in 1972, the majority of pollution eduction under the federal Clean Water Act has resulted from technology-based limits imposed on point source dischargers. However, most U.S. water bodies are unmonitored and of those that are, between 4.0 and 50 percent remain impaired. Given this limited progress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, multiple state agencies, and non-governmental organizations have proposed water quality trading as a cost effective means to achieve pollution reductions from point and nonpoint sources. To determine whether these programs actually achieve cost-effective pollution reduction in practice that they promise in theory, I evaluate direct and indirect outcomes associated with three water quality trading cases: the Grassland Area Farmers Tradable Loads Program in California’s San Joaquin Valley; the Tar-Pamlico River Basin Nutrient Offset Program in North Carolina; and the Long Island Sound Nitrogen Credit Exchange in Connecticut.
The major contributions of market-based instruments across cases were facilitating dischargers’ willingness to accept more stringent regulations and increasing the institutional capacity for watershed management by encouraging formation of organizations along hydrologic boundaries and information collection and dissemination. These benefits are attributable to the decentralized governance structure in general rather than economic incentives specifically, suggesting that policymakers should consider other decentralized approaches to watershed management. If policymakers want dischargers to actively trade, they should design parameters that mitigate uncertainty, market distortions, and political transaction costs.

Collaborative Approaches to Using Geographic Information Systems in Science Intensive Resource Management Planning: Implications for Practice from the Lesser Prairie-chicken Working Group

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Ric Richardson and Jennifer Peyser

This paper identifies key problems and opportunities encountered when citizens and experts confront disagreements about technical and scientific questions in managing land and natural resources. (Susskind and Dunlap 1981) (Sullivan et al. 1996) (Ozawa and Susskind 1985) The authors explore the forces that drive differing interpretations of scientific fact and argue for the role of citizen-based, non-objective judgments (Rittel and Webber 1973) (Fischer 1993) (Daniels and Walker 2001) In early 2002, a multi-party stakeholder Working Group, representing ranching and grazing interests, state and Federal regulatory agencies, sportsmen and recreational interests, oil and gas industries, conservation groups, and county and municipal governments, was formed to develop a Conservation Strategy for the Lesser Prairie-chicken and Sand Dune Lizard (LPC/SDL). Both species were listed as threatened species in southeastern New Mexico and the Fish and wildlife Service (FWS) was considering listing both.

Technology and Public Participation in Environmental Decisions

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Basilia Yao

The federal government has embraced web-based technology as a means of improving upon the traditional NEPA public participation process. Electronic participation has generated considerable interest among policymakers and scholars due to its potential to
facilitate more efficient and more deliberative interaction between citizens and government. This paper analyzes a pilot program by the Bureau of Land Management to integrate electronic participation into its decision making process. I evaluate four cases involved in the ePlanning pilot to understand the extent to which recent electronic participation efforts build upon established best practices in traditional, or offline participation. While there are some encouraging signs, most cases indicate that technology is applied mostly as a means of digitizing existing steps in the decision making process, rather than as a tool for enhancing the communicative and deliberative aspects of participation. The democratic potential of web-based technology lies not in the automation of existing practice, but in the support of established best practices.

 

RESULTS FROM NEPA PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT STUDY

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Marina Psaros and Lindsay Campbell

Increasing public involvement and engaging in more collaborative decision making have, over the past few decades, become priorities for Department of the Interior (DOI) natural resource management bureaus. But efforts to incorporate more collaborative processes in environmental decision making have been hampered by uncertainty about how to proceed within the existing
NEPA regulatory framework. Because collaborative approaches are relatively new, some personnel are unsure of how, when, where, or why to use them in the decision making process.

The purpose of this NEPA Public Involvement Study (“the study”) is twofold: 1) to gain a better understanding of how DOI bureaus have responded to the abovementioned policy directives and guidances within the existing NEPA framework; and 2) to identify what additional resources could help field staff further improve public participation processes. Understanding what’s happening “in the field” will help OEPC and CADR develop programs, tools and policies to support DOI’s resource management bureaus.

MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative
Decision Analysis and Joint Fact Finding

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Lindsay Campbell

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has invested resources in investigating a number of different decision-making processes and decision support systems both through its Science Impact program and through individual research projects. The purpose of this memo is to explore and compare the two processes of decision analysis (DA) and joint fact finding (JFF) in terms of their origins; main assumptions and theoretical parameters; and current forms and uses. In so doing, it becomes evident that DA and JFF have distinct, though potentially complementary, approaches to problem solving. The most notable distinction between the two is that DA is designed as a rational model to support a unitary decision-maker while JFF recognizes decisions as being constantly negotiated and challenged, even in situations of clear authority. DA involves modeling probabilities of expected outcomes in a linear fashion while JFF involves organizing a multiparty negotiation over disputed scientific and technical information. Therefore, DA and JFF are not interchangeable processes; they serve distinct functions, involve different audiences, and produce distinct outcomes. There are, however, potential vehicles for the integration of DA within a JFF process or a JFF process within a DA model that should be further explored.

 

Trading zones: cooperating for water resource and ecosystem management when stakeholders have apparently irreconcilable differences.

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Boyd Fuller

The findings from this study show that consensus building theory provides some useful explanations for why stakeholders were able to reach agreement in the face of their entrenched value-based differences. The experiences in the two case studies described here show that trading zone theory offers some needed insights that complement consensus building theory’s focus on process structure, facilitation, and interest-based problem solving. In the processes that reached agreement in both cases, maps, words, spreadsheets, diagrams, expressions, and calculations were generated by stakeholders following procedures they agreed were valid to describe the natural, political, cultural, and administrative situation on the ground. Like pieces of a puzzle, these partial representations were then combined and manipulated until stakeholders had constructed a vision of a future situation that they agreed was both desirable and feasible.

San Francisquito Creek—The Problem of Science in Environmental Disputes

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Nicolas L. Rofougaran and Herman A. Karl

We studied the role of scientists and scientific information in the decision-making processes used by local jurisdictions and communities in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, California, to address a contentious environmental dispute involving flooding and habitat restoration of the San Francisquito Creek. Although a great number of scientific studies have been undertaken and continue to be commissioned, the parties have not used the results to help resolve the dispute. We conclude that the absence of an effective collaborative process, which is based on consensus seeking strategies, is a major reason why science is not effectively used and why the communities cannot reach agreement on a solution to the dispute. In this regard, we studied the growing demand for greater public participation, as contrasted to traditional public involvement, in science-related policy making and in decision-making in general. We suggest that Joint Fact Finding as a component of a comprehensive consensus building and participatory decision-making process is a better approach for incorporating science into environmental policy making. Joint Fact Finding enables the active participation of citizens as partners with governmental representatives in framing the questions that address the issues and in designing and implementing the studies. This process maintains the independence of the scientists and their commitment to the best science. A well-designed Joint Fact Finding process will improve the capacity of all participants to learn from all forms of knowledge and to reach resolution of contentious environmental disputes.

Evaluating Next-Generation Environmental Policy Tools: Adaptive Management in the Bureau of Land Management

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Peter Brandenburg

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has begun to embrace the concept adaptive management as an alternative to traditional natural resource planning and management models. Adaptive management may provide BLM managers with a means to evaluate the effectiveness of management actions, the flexibility to adjust actions that have not proved effective, opportunities for rapid learning relevant to improved management, and improved public support for resource management decisions. To realize these benefits, BLM must include two critical elements in its adaptive management strategies: 1) adaptive design of management objectives, actions, monitoring and evaluation protocols and 2) effective collaboration among BLM and interested stakeholders. I evaluate three case studies of BLM adaptive management and find that none of the cases have fully included the critical elements. While there are some encouraging signs, the
cases collectively reveal several key shortcomings. The strategies have not capitalized on the potential to improve management through learning. Two cases illustrate the risk that adaptive management may be misapplied to remove requirements for predictive impact analysis and mitigation, putting resources at risk. The cases have not featured a joint fact finding collaborative structure to provide stakeholders with early and integrated roles in the adaptive management
process.

How Does Participation in the Framing, Review, and Incorporation of Scientific Information Affect Stakeholder Perspectives on Resource Management Decisions?

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Jennifer Peyser

The conventional environmental impact statement (EIS) decision-making process, governed by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), represents the prevailing practice with regard to public involvement in science-intensive policy disputes. The efficacy of the
current system, however, has been widely criticized in terms its methods of public involvement. One shortfall is that, although agencies solicit public input at various points, they do not involve stakeholders in a meaningful way in the scientific work associated with environmental decision-making. In particular, agencies give the public only a small role in framing scientific studies and no role in research interpretation or incorporation of science into decision-making. Further, agencies’ attempts to involve stakeholders in technical questions, while well intentioned, are seldom designed in such a way as to maximize legitimacy of the process or credibility of the science used to craft the plan or policy.
Joint fact finding is a process by which stakeholders work with scientists and decision- makers to frame, review, and incorporate scientific information into policy decisions. Through literature review and case studies of three approaches to public involvement, joint fact finding is explored as a process with the potential to improve the legitimacy and credibility of environmental assessments.

"Arguing, Bargaining and Getting Agreement", Oxford Encyclopedia of Public Policy

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Lawrence Susskind

In the public policy-making arena, stakeholders and decision-makers are engaged in a never-ending process of trying to influence each other’s thinking and behavior. Sometimes, this is accomplished through option one: conversation in which one party seeks to convince another to do something (i.e., lend support, change their mind) on the basis of evidence or argument. More often than not, though, an exchange of views – no matter how elegantly presented – is insufficient to alter strongly held beliefs. Because of this, many parties resort to option two -- hard bargaining -- in which threats, bluff, and political mobilization are used to gain the outcomes they want. Particularly if political power is unevenly distributed, powerful parties can often use hard bargaining to pursue their objectives. In many democratic contexts, however, confrontations that flow from hard bargaining lead to litigation (or other defensive moves), which typically generate less than ideal results for all parties.

There is a third option: “mutual gains” negotiation, or what is now called consensus building. In this mode, parties seek to make mutually advantageous trades -- offering their “votes” in exchange for a modification of what is being proposed or for a promise of support on other issues. So, while arguing and bargaining – the first two approaches to dealing with conflict in the public policy arena -- can sometimes produce the desired results, they often generate a backlash or lead to sustained confrontation. Only when parties feel that their core interests have been met, they have been treated fairly and they know everything possible is being done to maximize joint gains (i.e. through consensus building) will agreements be reachable and durable enough to withstand the difficulties of implementation.

 

Joint Fact-finding: The Interface of Science, Policy, and Communities Presented to U.S. Geological Survey

P. Lynn Scarlett

The Department’s multifaceted mission lies at confluence of people, land and water. That mission puts Interior at the center of complex environmental and land management issues. Should snow mobiles traverse Yellowstone? How much water should flow to protect salmon or chub or silvery minnows? How should we manage forests, tundra, wetlands, or mountain tops? How might we use resources to warm our homes, put food on our tables, toothpaste in our bathrooms, or catalytic converters in our cars—all items that use resources from our public lands?

Incorporating Local Knowledge Into Joint Fact Finding

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Matthew Amengual

This paper examines the contributions that local knowledge, or non-expert knowledge, can make to joint fact finding. Six examples of local knowledge are analyzed to further develop this approach. Processes that maximize the use of local knowledge will provide better information and will be perceived as more legitimate. This paper asserts that joint fact finding can help overcome many barriers to the inclusion of local knowledge in the traditional policy process, and that inclusion of local knowledge reinforces the goals of joint fact finding.

Applying Adaptive Management Principles to the Cape Wind Development Controversy

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Catherine Ashcraft

In practice the principles of adaptive management are rarely applied. However, if implemented the adaptive approach could generate significant benefits in development controversies, such as the case of the Cape Wind offshore wind farm development proposal. The iterative processes of generating options, collecting data, evaluating new information and developing responses create a dialogue among researchers and end-users in which the ecological impacts of realizing such a project can be understood. The complete process provides a system for responding to changes in the ecosystem. Significantly, it can also be used to address less measurable, but no less real, public disputes based on values. As a result, this approach is particularly well suited to cases characterized by lack of information, uncertainty, lack of scientific consensus, and conflict. While implementing an adaptive management approach will require forward-thinking and bold decisions, its potential benefits and the ineffectiveness of the current decision-making system should provide sufficient impetus to do so. A new institutional framework is proposed to support establishing this collaborative process based on joint fact finding. This organization is designed to imbue the process with sufficient legitimacy to attract the participation of disputing parties and decision-makers, in order to promote better decision-making about our natural resources.

Siting Wind Turbines: Collaborative Processes and Joint Fact Finding to Resolve NIMBY Disputes

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Jacob Glickel

The use of consensus building to address ecosystem management issues has been a growing area of research. Yet siting of undesirable facilities to protect environment has lead to NIMBY (“Not-in-my-backyard”) oppositions which can provide little room for consensus. Joint Fact Finding can address NIMBY by foregrounding stakeholders’ questions and concerns rather than letting unarticulated fears drive the debate. This paper will address the ways in which NIMBY rhetoric can be softened using examples from the siting of toxic facilities and wind farms. The objective of the paper is to show how joint fact finding can support consensus building by allowing consideration of community concerns that might otherwise become polarized into a NIMBY-based constriction of the process.

The Role of the Scientist in Collaborative Environmental Policy Making

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Steven R. Lenard and Ian J. Finlayson

During the 20th Century, scientific and technical information has become increasingly central in the development and implementation of public policy. This trend will continue through the foreseeable future. This development has created an important role for scientists in the formation of public policy. However, conflicting standards of conduct that are applied to scientists involved in policy-relevant science create dilemmas for practice. The adequacy and effectiveness of the roles scientists (the producers of scientific information) play in policy making has been questioned. Collaborative approaches to policy formulation hold promise for creating a decision making space in which a more effective role for scientists can exist. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as one of the premier federal science agencies, is currently struggling with the question of how its scientists can best contribute to societal decisions while maintaining objectivity and excellence in their work. At present, their scientists play many roles in policy-relevant science, each of which has distinct promises and pitfalls.

Building the Role of Science in Environmental Policy Processes

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Ali Mostashari

In the current “traditional” science-intensive environmental decision-making process, scientific analysis is effectively separated from other aspects of policy making. Disarticulated from stakeholder concerns and knowledge, it is thus isolated from the framing of questions and the scoping of issues to be studied. Two factors driving this effect are the distancing of issue-framing from analysis in the policy process and also the reluctance of scientists to actively participate in the public policy sphere. The result is to marginalize science in decision-making processes. Scientists blame the weak role of science in the decision-making process on the politicization of the policy process and the lack of scientific understanding on the part of decision makers and stakeholders. This paper highlights some ways that the traditional process fails at different stages and proposes individual solutions to each. The argument is that a collaborative policy-making process with stakeholder engagement in the scientific analysis process through a joint fact finding approach may result in a more central role for science and in a less adversarial, less politicized decision-making process in which stakeholder values, concerns and knowledge are taken into consideration.

Joint Fact Finding for Public Involvement in Wind-Permitting Decisions: Beyond NEPA

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Jennifer Peyser

NEPA has helped to improve federal agency responsiveness and public accountability. However, many criticize NEPA’s efficacy, particularly its methods of public involvement. One shortfall is that, although agencies solicit public input at various points, they do not involve stakeholders in a meaningful way in the scientific stages of the process. In particular, agencies give the public only a small role in scoping scientific studies and no role in the research and data interpretation stages, at which many critical decisions are made. While agencies comply with NEPA guidelines, they do not strive for the balance of environmental, economic, and social concerns advocated by NEPA Section 101. Further, poor communication and efficiency have led to public dissatisfaction with decisions and a loss of agency credibility. These issues prevent agencies from realizing the full potential of NEPA as a tool to craft effective and stable environmental policy.