Around the West and even around the world, communities and governments have been experimenting with more collaborative, decentralized yet coordinated, science-based environmental decision-making and stewardship with impressive results. In December 1998 at a Western Governors’ Association meeting, Governors Mike Leavitt, R-Utah, and John Kitzhaber, D-Oregon, were describing their own experiences and successes with collaborative yet comprehensive efforts. Governor Leavitt experience came from many of the projects described earlier as well as from his experience as Chairman of an effort to address regional air quality and haze impacts to the Grand Canyon. Governor Kitzhaber was in his third year of working with landowners, technical experts and participants throughout Oregon to restore watershed health and the salmon that are integral to the region’s heritage and future. Both saw that the solutions they were nurturing could do more to meet society’s goals for the health of the environment than existing laws could compel. Both sensed that the commitments being made would be sustained through time and that real progress in improving environmental health could be made. Both saw the power and value of everyone working together on a shared problem – sharing perspectives, gaining a greater understanding of the science and legal parameters (more…)
