Sitka Gear Turkey Tool Belt

Idaho Collabrative Public Land

Perhaps there is no better example of a collaborative than the recent Sage Grouse Initiative. People from all walks of life, including government officials, worked together for years to put together a series of plans to protect the sage grouse. After all was said and done, the Trump administration has come in and wants to pull the rug out from under the plans because they might impede energy development.

That is the main problem with collaboratives...they depend on trust. Often there is someone with power that doesn't like the direction the collaborative is going, and he/she will get angry, pout and go home. If it ended there it wouldn't be so bad, but the angry party often decides to use his/her power to usurp the collaborative. This happens a lot. It destroys trust and makes the cooperating parties wonder why they bothered to spend their time on the issue. Public land enthusiasts need to be very careful about getting into a collaborative with powerful people who are known to not be supporters of public land.
 
Recently some of the same Wyoming legislators, who have been promoting federal land transfer, proposed a bill to create a Wyoming federal lands management collaborative. The proposed bill listed the members of the collaborative including ranchers, oil & gas, outdoor recreation, etc. Many of us felt outdoor recreation was not adequately represented...especially since the bill did not specify whether decisions would be made by majority vote or by consensus? If by majority vote, outdoor recreationists would certainly be outnumbered. Furthermore, the bill did not specify how recommendations made by the collaborative would be utilized by federal land management agencies. Certainly they should not be binding. Federal land managers should have final say regarding federal land management decisions. To do otherwise would turn over management to the proposed collaborative.

In short, we felt the proposed bill was an attempt by known federal land management foes to transfer management power to a collaborative they had setup and that they could control. Fortunately the bill seems to have faded away, but there are rumors that it might re-surface. We need to very wary of collaboratives...who is promoting them, who will be the members, what are the rules of operation, what power will the have, etc.
 
Just listened to the "Wildfires" program that is about 10 programs down on the Home Ground Radio link, and it is a good one on the collaboration process as well.
 
I found another article on this today. Same groups as Sytes' original post, but different authors. http://boisecountyconnection.com/20...-health-of-our-forests-and-rural-communities/

This paragraph especially caught my attention. It's good to see cooperation instead of lawsuits.
Instead of arguing over every timber project or wilderness proposal, advocates from these typically opposing sides got together in the forest planning stage and agreed in advance on which areas were most appropriate for these uses. In the roaded front country, conservationists agreed to help craft more ecologically minded timber sales. Timber sales tripled in the last few years. Likewise, timber industry representatives are supporting Sen. Jim Risch’s proposal to designate the Scotchman Peaks as wilderness.
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BHR, what are your thoughts on Daines’ deafening silence on BCSA?

Genuinely interested in hearing your opinion.
 
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Paul in Idaho said:
I found another article on this today. Same groups as Sytes' original post, but different authors. http://boisecountyconnection.com/20...-health-of-our-forests-and-rural-communities/

This paragraph especially caught my attention. It's good to see cooperation instead of lawsuits.
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That is the type of bipartisan action that breeds success. It is unfortunate so many people with a stake in this game believe it has to be all their way or no way at all. This includes all those associations, Etc.

Examples such as the portion you quoted seem a fantastic promotion for these programs.
 
Schaaf said:
BHR, what are your thoughts on Daines’ deafening silence on BCSA?

Genuinely interested in hearing your opinion.
Click to expand...

I'll call his office and ask them what his issues are with the BCSA. For those that do not know what the BCSA is, here is a link.

https://www.tester.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=5021

Any thoughts on why Tester's larger 2009 version of this bill went no where, Schaaf?
 
As an aside. Any thoughts on whether or not Tester goes along with Chuck and Nancy's suicide mission today? I can't see him going along with it.
 
Called Daines' Missoula office and got a warm body. He couldn't provide any issues that the Senator had with the BCSA. I then let him know that I would like to see Senator Daines work with Senator Tester on passing this act.

I called Tester's Missoula office to discuss today's vote. I got their voice mail. Hope they call back.
 
BigHornRam said:
Called Daines' Missoula office and got a warm body. He couldn't provide any issues that the Senator had with the BCSA. I then let him know that I would like to see Senator Daines work with Senator Tester on passing this act.

I called Tester's Missoula office to discuss today's vote. I got their voice mail. Hope they call back.
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Would love to see him get on board. I don’t have too many thoughts on Tester’s 2009 BCSA bill. I had one thing on my mind at that time and it wasn’t public land politics.
 
Schaaf said:
Would love to see him get on board. I don’t have too many thoughts on Tester’s 2009 BCSA bill. I had one thing on my mind at that time and it wasn’t public land politics.
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If Tester's own party got on board with his 2009 bill, than this discussion would be mute. But they only had one thing on their mind at that time, and it wasn't public land politics. How about today's vote? Any comments?
 
Let’s keep this thread focused on the good work accomplished by collaborative projects.

If the government does shut down I’m going to be a renegade on public lands after some coyotes next week.
 
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FJRA was a bold initiative from Tester, and one that still bears revisiting. The reason it dodn't get as far as I had hoped were multitude, but anytime you try and do something yuge, like FJRA, it meets a lot of resistance from the opposition on both sides. The far left folks didn't like it because it didn't create enough Wilderness and the far right hated it because it created too much wilderness.

I think there were a few spots where more work should have been done to find consensus, especially in the B-D. Most of the other portions had little to no controversy of any real nature. Blackfoot-Clearwater as a stand alone bill is a good idea.

Love seeing these collaborative efforts getting more and more oxygen. it's a model that Montana developed and is being exported across the country. These kinds of efforts produce lasting results and real movement towards resolving issues related to land management.
 
Schaaf said:
Let’s keep this thread focused on the good work accomplished by collaborative projects.

If the government does shut down I’m going to be a renegade on public lands after some coyotes next week.
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Nice. Tester is planning on going off the edge with Chuck and Nancy, so you will likely get your vacation. Enjoy yourself.
 
BigHornRam said:
Nice. Tester is planning on going off the edge with Chuck and Nancy, so you will likely get your vacation. Enjoy yourself.
Click to expand...

Go pound sand big-mouth, and stay on topic, for once.

Congress is supposed to pass a budget by the end of the fiscal year. I cant remember the last time the government hasn't had multiple CR's...and that falls on congress as a whole, not R's not D's not I's...its all of them, they're all complicate and derelict in their duties.

As to the collaborative process, I agree with Ben, its the only clear path forward and should be embraced.
 
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