Page 37 - 4. Pre-Course Reading-Training on Forestry Audit 2019

Appendix 1: Forestry Audit Case Studies

7. SOCIAL PROBLEMS ment efforts, according to the experts, federal officials, and
participants in the efforts GAO studied. For example, the
agencies face challenges in determining whether to participate
Title: “Opportunities Exist to Enhance Federal in a collaborative effort, measuring participation and moni-
Participation in Collaborative Efforts to Reduce toring results, and sharing agency and group experiences.
Conflicts and Improve Natural Resource Conditions”. As a part of the interagency Cooperative Conservation ini-
(The Government Accountability Office, The United States, 2008)
tiative led by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),
the federal government has made progress in addressing
these challenges. yet, additional opportunities exist to develop
Background
and disseminate tools, examples, and guidance that further
Conflict over the use of our nation’s natural resources, along address the challenges, as well as to better structure and direct
with increased ecological problems, has led land managers to the initiative to achieve the vision of Cooperative Conservation,
seek cooperative means to resolve natural resource conflicts which involves a number of actions by multiple agencies over
and problems. Collaborative resource management is one such the long term. Failure to pursue such opportunities and to
approach that communities began using in the 1980s and 1990s. create a long-term plan to achieve the vision may limit the
A 2004 Executive Order on Cooperative Conservation encourages effectiveness of the federal government’s initiative and collabo-
such efforts. rative efforts.
37
Audit Objectives Recommendations
1. To determine experts views on collaborative 1. Disseminate, more widely, tools for the agencies to use in
resource management. assessing and determining if, when, and how to participate
in a particular collaborative effort and how to sustain their
2. To determine how selected collaborative efforts have participation over time.
addressed conflicts and improved natural resources.
2. Identify examples of groups that have conducted natural
3. To determine challenges that agencies face as they resource monitoring, including at the landscape level, and
participate in such efforts and how the Cooperative
Conservation initiative has addressed them. develop and disseminate guidance or protocols for others
to use in setting up such monitoring efforts.
3. Hold periodic national or regional meetings and confe-
Audit Criteria rences to bring groups together to share collaborative
experiences identify further challenges, and learn from the
1. Endangered Species Act.
lessons of other collaborative groups.
2. National Environmental Policy Act.
4. Identify and evaluate, with input from the Office of Manage-
3. Criteria established in the Uncompahgre Plateau Project Plan. ment and Budget (OMB) legal and policy changes concer-
ning federal financial assistance that would enhance
collaborative efforts.
Findings
5. Identify goals, actions, responsible work groups and agencies,
1. A number of collaborative practices, such as seeking inclusive and time frames for carrying out the actions needed to
representation, establishing leadership, and identifying a implement the Cooperative Conservation initiative, inclu-
common goal among the participants have been central ding collaborative resource management, and document
to successful collaborative management efforts. The success these through a written plan, memorandum of understan-
of these groups is often judged by whether they increase ding, or other appropriate means.
participation and coope-ration or improve natural resource Source: United States Government Accountability Office, 2008. Natural Resource
conditions. Many experts also note that there are limitations Management-Opportunities Exist to Enhance Federal Participation in Collaborative Efforts
to the approach, such as the time and resources it takes to Reduce Conflicts and Improve Natural Resource Conditions.
to bring people together to work on a problem and reach a
decision.
8. WATER MANAGEMENT
2. Most of the seven collaborative resource management efforts
GAO studied in several states across the country were
successful in achieving participation and cooperation among Title: “The Impact of Eucalyptus Plantations
their members and improving natural resource conditions. on the Environment under the Social Forestry
In six of the cases, those involved were able to reduce or Project Malakand-Dir”.
avoid the kinds of conflicts that can arise when dealing with (Office of the Auditor General of Pakistan, 2002)
contentious natural resource problems. All the efforts, parti-
cularly those that effectively reduced or avoided conflict,
used at least several of the collaborative practices described Background
by the experts.
The Social Forestry Project Malakand ran from February 1987
3. Federal land and resource management agencies - the to January 1992. Under the auspices of this project, large-
Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, scale plantations of Eucalyptus Camaldulensis were carried out
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service, and in the Malakand-Dir region on an area of 22,071.29 hectares
the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service - face key (54,497 acres).
challenges to participating in collaborative resource manage-