Values of the West: Implications of Stakeholder Collaboration in Public Land Management
Name:
Maggie O'Toole
Major: Environmental Science and Political Science
Hometown: Evergreen Park, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Tracy Gartner
Other Sponsors: Jerald Mast and Sarah Rubinfeld
Type of research: Senior thesis
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
Poster file
