RESULTS FROM PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOP ON COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE ADIRONDACKS
August 16, 1998
NOTE: Please do not quote or use this information without authors'
permission.
To Workshop Participants:
We would like to thank you again for participating at the Workshop on Collaborative Environmental Management in the Adirondacks held at the Fifth Annual Conference on the Adirondacks at Saranac Lake, New York on May 20-22nd, 1998. This note includes some of the initial results from our activities.
As part of the workshop, we requested that participants identify the type and number of partnerships that existed between the groups/agencies/organizations operating within the Adirondacks region. As you recognize, such inter-organizational partnerships are important mechanisms through which individual groups/agencies etc. attempt to achieve their programmatic goals and objectives. Our exercise was designed to develop a "snap-shot" of what these links look like and how they are structured. In general, the results indicate a rich network of groups/agencies/organizations concerned with Adirondacks management.
During the workshop, we defined partnerships as collaborative efforts aimed at achieving shared management activities. We defined six different categories of partnership links:
1. Office Space/Equipment/Data--joint
ownership, rental, or use of such things as
buildings.floor space, computers, fax machines, telephone lines, data bases,
monitoring and testing equipment, vehicles, etc.
2. Outreach and Education
Activities--public information in the form of
brochures, advertisements, public service announcements web sites, etc.;
development of education materials and curricula; lectures, symposia, and
other fora.
3. Policymaking and Political
Activities--drafting policy statements, working in
support of political candidates, drafting legislation, meeting with legislators
and staff, lobbying.
4. Site Management Activities--planning
and execution of such activities as
trail maintenance and restoration, enhancement of riparian habitat, tree
planting, cleanup activities, restoration of historical structures, etc.
5. Information about the
Organization--purposeful sharing of newsletters,
meeting announcements, notices of events, publications, etc. with partners.
This refers to targeted, regular efforts rather than simply making information
available to the broad public and assuming that other organizations will
avail
themselves of this information.
6. Expertise--consultation
or advice involving specialized knowledge of a
specific topic or topics.
We also asked the participants to define whether the links were frequent or infrequent (i.e. defined as interaction, on average once per month or more [twelve or more times per year] or, on average, less often than once per month [less than twelve times per year]) and formal or informal (i.e. whether a written agreement is in place among the parties).
The results of the workshop are presented with the following caveats:
1.The groups/agencies/organization
surveyed represent a subset of such entities
operating
in the Adirondacks region.
2.Given that the representatives
present at the workshop don't know all the
possible
links, not all the partnerships between the various entities were identified.
3. Given our strategy, we did
not allow for the definition of partnerships that have
more than partners.
Workshop participants represented or identified 14 different groups/organizations/agencies
involved with Adirondacks management issues. Noted is the number of frequent,
infrequent and total number of links associated with each.
TABLE 1
Freq. Infreq. Total
1. Adirondack Council
7
4 11
2. Adirondack Ecological Center
5
5 10
3. Adirondack Mountain Club
6
4 10
4. Adirondack Park Agency
11
6 17
5. Adirondack Park Govt. Review Board
9
6 15
6. Adirondack Research Consortium
3 10
13
7. Algonguin to Adirondacks
2
1
3
8. Greater Laurentian Wildlands Projects
2
2
4
9. Jones Ecological Research Council
0
3
3
10. New York State Dept. of Conservation
23
8 31
11. Paul Smithís College
7
4 11
12. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
1
7
8
13. Saranac Lake School Board
0
4
4
14. U.S. Forest Service (Clark U.)
3
0
3
The total number of individual links identified (each link was defined
as having two participants) was 77. Information on differing types of links
is as follows:
TABLE 2
Frequent Infrequent Total Percent of all
1. Office Space/Equipment/Data
4
1 5
6.9
2. Outreach and Education
Activities
7
15 22
30.5
3. Policymaking and Political
Activities 6
1 7
9.7
4. Site Management Activities
6
0 6
8.3
5. Information about the
Organization
5
2 7
9.7
6. Expertise
12
13 25
34.7
-----
----- -----
40
32 72
Of these, 23.4 percent (n=18) were formal links. The nature of the
formal links is as follows:
TABLE 3
1. Office Space/
3
0
16.7
60.0
Equipment/Data
2. Outreach and Education
Activities
4
2
33.3
27.3
3. Policymaking and
Political Activities
2
0
11.1
28.6
4. Site Management
Activities
4
0
22.2
66.7
5. Information about the
Organization
0
0
0.0
0.0
6. Expertise
3
0
16.7
12.0
--
--
16
2
The following are some our initial thoughts regarding the data:
We hope to expand this survey in the future, in order, to get a fuller
picture of the types of interaction present in the Adirondacks, and therefore
would find your input particularly useful.
Regards,
Dr. William D. Solecki
Department of Earth and Environmental Studies
Montclair State University
Upper Montclair, NJ 07043
Dr. Sarah Michaels
Department and Environmental and Urban Policy
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
Dr. Robert J. Mason
Department of Geography and Urban Studies
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Cc: Gary Chilson, Paul Smithís College