To what extent has the Applegate Partnership been successful? Has it made any difference? How can we measure the success of a partnership such as the Applegate? This is part 3 of a 3-part series on the Applegate Partnership. (Part 1 dealt with "What Makes it Work?" And part 2 addressed some of the problems.) Someone said recently, "Good heavens! After 6 1/2 years, they're still cookin'!" Besides persistence (an attribute also given to roaches over eons), there are many other factors to evaluate.
Meets its mission
For any group to evaluate its effectiveness, the obvious check is "How well does it meet its own mission?" The vision (mission) of the Applegate Partnership is:
The Applegate Partnership is a community-based project involving industry, conservation groups, natural resource agencies, and residents cooperating to encourage and facilitate the use of natural resource principles that promote ecosystem health and diversity. Through community involvement and education, this partnership supports management of all land within the watershed in a manner that sustains natural resources and that will, turn, contribute to economic and community well being within the Applegate Valley.
Inclusiveness & Diversity
A critical ingredient, and measure, of collaborative stewardship groups is the ability of the group to attract and retain broad representation of the community. (Inclusion of "communities of interest" as well as "communities of place" is needed.) The Applegate Partnership has been successful in encouraging a wide range of participants to the table. From the beginning, there has been participation of people in the timber industry, environmental interests, farmers, ranchers, agency personnel, educators, and residents. Though some of the individuals have changed, the Partnership has been able to retain a highly diverse group of people over time. Some have thought that the net has been too widely flung, and may find themselves uncomfortable with the unfamiliar catch. Currently the challenge is how to make this forum safe and respectful in order to retain participants.
There has also been some frustration in reaching national interests, though many of values held by national interest groups are also held by local participants. It has also been difficult to structure a forum in which many ranchers, farmers, or woods-workers feel comfortable in coming to meetings. (For one thing, a meeting is not a favorite means of getting something done for a lot of folks.) There is a continued effort to reach more people through a variety of methods, like the Applegator newspaper going to all households in the watershed, well-advertised evening meetings or weekend field trips open to all people, personal contact, and workshops. Overall, the Partnership reflects diversity and operates as an inclusive and accessible forum.
Forum for diverse ideas
Another factor of success is the ability of the group to create a forum for diverse ideas and mutual education. One person recently told me, "I've learned more from these Partnership meetings than I ever could have from a library". By encouraging both field trips and office meetings, people have had an incredible amount of exposure to scientific and social studies. The opportunity to engage scientists and others working in the communities, agencies, and research organizations has provided a rich mixing of ideas and possible solutions. There has been an increase in willingness of people to listen and begin to understand the values of others.
The difficulty in a creating safe and respectful forum for exchange of diverse ideas continues to be one of the greatest challenges. Efforts are being made to improve facilitation, increase communication skills of participants, re-examine focus, and substitute field trips for some meetings. People seem to do some of the most creative work in the field rather than in the office (where rhetoric and positioning seem to be a fall back mode).
Solves problems
The solving of problems is another key factor. It's not enough for a group to sit and get mutually educated if they do not get to the next step and do something. The Applegate Partnership was criticized in the first few years of its existence as a group that did a lot of talking but did not get much done. That is no longer true. And in fact, some think that all the talking was a necessary step before action (the "go slow to go fast" idea). One can only marvel at the amount of work accomplished by the Applegate River Watershed Council in the last few years. Residents bring problems to the Partnership because it is increasingly being known as an action-based the evolution of the "hot dog stand" at Applegate Wayside is a great example. This was a conflict situation involving private landowners, the county, and historical river access by thousands of people. Without the intervention of the Applegate Partnership, there would still be lots of angry people and a cyclone fence for decades.
The Partnership has also encouraged the federal land managing agencies to improve the landscape and reduce fire hazard over the watershed. The agencies have shifted from planning individual projects to watershed-based planning intended to identify all work needed to improve the landscape. Many of these shifts have been addressed in previous Applegator articles, such as the shift in timber sales from a reliance to clear cutting to thinning. As Ron Wenker, District Manager of the Medford District Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said recently, " Working with groups like the Applegate Partnership is the right thing to do. Without this, people will be fighting, there's little chance for solving problems, and we'll be in the midst of lawsuits." There are still appeals and lawsuits on timber sales by some groups, but there has been a shift in community support. There is a higher level of community participation, creative ideas, and overall support for the agencies' projects.
Improved relationships
Though this is hard to measure, there have been major changes in how many people perceive and interact with each other. Like Dwain Cross said in the Applegate Partnership video, "Total trust in the Applegate Partnership has not been achieved yet, but it is certainly a lot further down the road than it was when we first started." One can see an increase in contact among participants, and that results in things getting done differently. For instance, not long ago a neighbor was alarmed about some logging on adjacent property. Rather than calling news media or regulatory agencies, she called a Partnership member who was able to get quickly information about what was happening and how long it would last.
Outreach and education
In crafting its vision in November, 1992, the Applegate Partnership fully recognized that the dreams could only be realized with extensive outreach and education. The Applegator has served in this essential role as one means to increase community awareness of complex ecological, economic, and social issues in the area. Most of the work accomplished by the Applegate River Watershed Council follows extensive one-on-one communication by staff members and residents, whether it relates to planting trees along a stream, building fences, fixing roads, or developing recommendations for aggregate mining.
Increased community capacity
The capacity for interested citizens and communities to come together to solve problems is increased by the presence of a successful group such as the Applegate Partnership. Since the group was initiated in 1992, there have been a number of other groups in the Applegate that have formed to address community issues, e.g., economic opportunities, retaining campground and picnic sites, land-use planning, etc. Many of the members of these other groups are also active in the Partnership and such networking can not only be "mapped" but is evidence of capacity-building of a community.
Increased cooperation across jurisdictional boundaries
One of the first requests from the Partnership to the agencies in 1992 was for an integrated Geographic Information System (GIS) map for the entire 500,000 acre watershed. Integrating data from the states (Oregon and California), private lands, Forest Service (FS), BLM, research agencies, and others merit a story all by itself. The result of several years work is an integrated map for the Applegate river watershed with more data on this watershed than perhaps anywhere in the Northwest. Sharing these GIS files has enabled the Applegate River Watershed Council as well as the state and federal agencies to greatly improve work across organizational, administrative, and jurisdictional boundaries.
The Council is pioneering work and fostering problem-solving in ways that could not have been envisioned even 5 years ago. Both state and federal agencies are challenged to meet the high expectations of this increasingly sophisticated group to improve ways we do business. For instance, the Council recognizes that private land owners are often caught between numerous state and federal agencies in getting permits for activities, especially those needing compliance with the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act. The Council has launched an all-party monitoring project to develop ways a private land owner can do work on her/his land with a simplified approval process that will be good for years to come. This requires about 20 regulatory and land managing agencies to come together and agree on a process (stay tuned).
There are many other examples of how the Partnership has encouraged agencies and private citizens to work more closely together. Often a neighbor has a problem with an agency, and the Partnership has served the role of facilitating the key parties to get together to work it out. The Partnership encourages responsive behavior from agencies and that's good for all of us (challenging at times but good!) The bottom line is that the local, state, and federal agencies are sharing more information, doing better planning, and working more closely with communities in solving problems.
It's hard to recognize a hero in the midst of us. But the women and men involved in the Partnership are heroes. The planet desperately needs examples of how to do this differently. We all need hope in this hard work. And the Partnership gives us hope.
Contracting Methods: Explore and Utilize alternative contracting methods to accomplish objectives on non-economic units, such as stewardship contracts or service contracts with salvage rights/product removal provisions. Responsibility: Bob Miller and Ed Reilly; also Little Applegate Care Team (Upper Glade Project)
Test extraction technologies: Continue with RIEE equipment studies on HARRTS. Complete Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) to add use of Prospect mini-yarder (Cornell) Develop project opportunity for use of zig zag yarder (Warner).
Research involvement: Help implement Fund for Rural America SDM project.
-Stand identification and field implementation (Mitchell, Cornell, Warner).
-Overall project tracking, applications, tech transfer, education (Mastrofini).
-Review FEEMA economic analysis model and potential application (Robertson and Reilly)
Learning documentation education, tech transfer: Harrts RIEE Demo project will document things such as costs, resource monitoring results etc. (RIEE, Warner, Mastrofini). We will collect information implementation methods to compare costs, quality of work, feasibility etc. (Mastrofmi and Robertson). Conduct interviews w/ industry members about (SDM) methods being used and tested for input, feedback, cost, and effectiveness of information (Mastrofini). All project leaders listed in this action plan will be responsible to document key learning from projects individually or in a joint effort with other project leaders.
Support Market Development: Work with potential partners in market development efforts (RIEE, small operators, SOTIA, etc.) (All).
-Work w/ Rogue River NF forestwide SDM program development (Warner, Smelcer).