| This profile is part of "Sustainable Agriculture... Continuing to Grow", a publication developed to present some of the excellent sustainable agriculture research and education work done by universities, nonprofit organizations and other institutions in the Western Region over the past twelve years. Additional profiles and abstracts will be posted weekly, with links provided in the Table of Contents. |
Holistic Management on Public Lands: Can it Work?
Russell H. Camper and Chance M. Gowan
Holistic Management (H.M.) is a decision-making framework that is driven by the formation of a holistic goal and then testing subsequent decisions and actions to determine those which will move you most rapidly toward the attainment of the goal. This model has been frequently and successfully applied to the management of private lands where decision-making power resides within a relatively small circle of influence and where the ‘whole’ under management is easily defined.
Public Lands Management presents it own challenges due to several factors such as a large land base, low level of development, conflicting and disparate demands for resources, and a vastly wider participation base. The management decisions affecting these lands are also made within the framework of several laws/regulations/policies that determine to some extent the process that will be used to engage public or user participation in the decision-making process. Blending standard public lands decision analysis processes and the H.M. decision-making model is a special challenge, but has been successfully accomplished. Case studies show that progress is possible through collaborative efforts that focus on a common goal and encourage cooperation at the ground level. The results of this effort are not only socially rewarding but are reflected in recent monitoring information which indicates that riparian conditions across the allotment are improving rapidly with respect to such characteristics as vegetation trends, bank stability, willow regeneration and reduced in-stream sediment levels.
Russell H. Camper and
Chance M. Gowan
U.S. Forest Service
Hc63 Box 1671
Challis, ID 83226
Tel: (208) 879-4321
The work to create this publication was sponsored by the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (Western SARE) program. Western SARE is an effort of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since 1988 through federal fiscal 2000, the U.S. Congress has allocated more than $114.6 million to the federal SARE effort; Western SARE has received $26 million. The Western region includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and the Island Protectorates of American Samoa, Guam, Micronesia and the Northern Mariana Islands.