Overcoming Locally Based Collaboration Constraints

Abstract

Scientific, societal, managerial, and political trends are all simultaneously pushing resource management towards more collaborative approaches. In response, innovative collaborative efforts have emerged to address natural resource problems—many of them originating at the local level. Based on research in Australia and the United States, this article highlights five constraints associated with locally based collaboration: transaction costs, limited perspective, organizational sustainability, policy issues, and the adequacy of representation. To overcome these constraints, it is argued that the concept of collaboration should be decoupled from the concept of localism. Collaboration can operate at several different institutional levels, and a nested set of collaborative arrangements in Oregon's Rogue River Basin helps illustrate how constraints related to a locally based approach can be overcome. Furthermore, these structures provide forums for a range of decision makers to address some of the broader and more fundamental natural resource management problems facing society today.