Values of the West: Implications of Stakeholder Collaboration in Public Land Management

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to gain perspective on the federal management of public lands in relation to stakeholder collaboration throughout the process. The public lands of the American West incite varying values on how the land and resources should be managed. This study looks specifically at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and their proposal of “Planning 2.0”, which strives to provide meaningful collaboration and communication with stakeholders. Through analysis of political theories and philosophies as well as content gathered from the types of participants involved in the planning process, it is found that collaboration leads to the possibility of short term ecological damage but generates potentials for long term easement of political strife. This strife not only results from differing land management philosophies but also polarized views. Additionally, valuable information will be gathered by applying the model, created in this study, to specific types of stakeholders. It would be beneficial for future studies to gain a perspective on national attitudes towards public land management, as opposed to regional attitudes addressed in this study, to see if majority of interests are being represented by the stakeholders participating in the planning process. Regardless, by applying components of agenda stetting by engaged interest groups involved in the planning process, past efforts of the BLM, and the use of a model based approach to predict management outcomes, allow light to be shed on what public land management means in today’s complex society and what implications this has politically and ecologically, short and long term.