My last project with the Wallace Stegner Center’s EDR program was facilitating the La Sal Sustainability Collaboration (LSSC), a diverse group working to co-create an approach to management of the Southern La Sal’s and Canyons, where federal, state and private rangelands are operated as an integrated, sustainable system. Stakeholders included state, federal and local agencies, conservation groups, and representatives of the ranching family responsible for grazing cattle across a 285,000-acre landscape of mostly public lands.
After more than two years of “dynamic” facilitated negotiations, in February 2017, the group signed a Final Report and Consensus Recommendations, a 308-page document with 11 detailed appendices outlining a collaborative future. The consensus recommendations included on-the-ground management actions (livestock grazing plans, native fish conservation, beaver reintroduction), recommended administrative actions (regulatory action regarding native fish and communication effectiveness suggestions), and actions for assessing progress and promoting accountability (collaborative long-term monitoring, an adaptive management strategy). Some of the consensus recommendations would be presented for agency decision-making, and some could be implemented independently. The LSSC members also made a commitment to an active role in the evaluation, refinement, and implementation of their recommendations, along with ongoing assessment and improvement of management of the LSSC landscape.
The celebration for signing the consensus recommendations in 2017 was my last contact with the group—until I was asked if I could attend the LSSC’s “reunion” (a panel discussion) at the Utah Society for Range Management annual meeting on Nov. 6, 2024. I did attend, and I learned that the LSSC has been working well together in the past 7+ years to implement the consensus recommendations and address new challenges presented by the passage of time (e.g., effects of the Pack Creek Fire on the LSSC landscape).
Interestingly, immediately before the LSSC panel discussion, Jordan Katcher (the EDR program’s initiatives facilitator) gave the meeting’s opening talk, with a focus on the importance of practicing conflict competency skills. It occurred to me that the EDR program’s principles of conflict competence—developed by EDR Director Danya Rumore—are embodied by the La Sal Sustainability Collaboration. This explains why and how the group of ranchers, agencies at all levels of government, and conservation interests can continue to work together successfully. Here’s how they are practicing Danya’s seven “Cs” of conflict competence (as well as one additional “C” that I’ve added), whether they realize it or not.
Conflict comprehension: Over the two-plus years of negotiations that I facilitated, the LSSC stakeholders learned that disagreement was just the beginning of a rich conversation, and this is how they approach their ongoing interactions. They learned to look for—and look out for—each other’s interests. At the November panel, one of the ranching family representatives said that their “lesson learned” from being a part of the collaboration was that all participants—ranchers, agency staff and conservationists—had the same “goals,” namely a love of the landscape and a desire to maintain its health in perpetuity. That’s a great foundation for a problem-solving conversation.
Calm: The LSSC meetings didn’t start out as “calm!” Indeed, for the first six months, I spent as much time de-escalating the discussion as helping the group move toward a shared vision of the future. Over time, each participant learned how to access and bring their own calm personality to the table, whether that meant drinking a little less Mountain Dew over the course of the day (that combination of sugar and caffeine sure did impact their behavior), or asking the group to take a break when an individual was triggered by what someone else said (allowing their body to purge the cortisol associated with anger and come back to neurological equilibrium).
Compassion: During the panel at the Utah Society for Range Management annual meeting in November, the current LSSC members referred to each other as “family” in all the meanings of the word. They look forward to getting together, they bicker and disagree, they work through disagreement to a common plan, they care about each other. I heard one story of a delay of funding to build a much-needed fence. Knowing how frustrating and harmful the delay was, 10 or so of the LSSC members (rancher, agency and conservation reps) came together and built the fence as a team. This speaks to the compassion they have developed for one another and the way that helps them connect with each other.
Curiosity: Just as the group struggled at first with calmness, many participants lacked curiosity about the other. Sitting in day-long meetings talking and looking at PowerPoints wasn’t necessarily the best way to instill curiosity. The magic curiosity potion? Going out in the field together and seeing the same on-the-ground situation with multiple sets of eyes. All of a sudden someone else’s vision of a possible solution started to make sense and jumpstarted a productive exploration of possibilities.
Creativity: While developing the grazing management and collaborative monitoring plans that form an essential part of the consensus recommendations, various LSSC participants were truly excited to be coming up with new and different ways to address long-term problems. Having moved past oppositional (aka positional) reactions to welcoming new ideas, they gave themselves permission to co-create an approach they felt would actually work on the ground and make a difference.
Communication: In the two-plus years of facilitated negotiations, we moved from one of the rancher representatives yelling out “I hate the federal government—I don’t trust the Forest Service” to, a year or so later, several of the participants reacting to initial feelings of disagreement with statements like “I’m not sure I understand; please tell me more about what you’re thinking.” During the panel discussion in November, many of the current LSSC participants pointed to “early, often and honest” communication as the linchpin of the collaboration’s ongoing success.
Commitment: The word commitment came up multiple times at the November panel as a core component of the group’s long-term success. Each stakeholder interest signed a letter of commitment before meetings ever started, agreeing to stick with the process and to help implement any consensus recommendations. For the ranching family, this was a difficult promise to let outsiders learn the details of their operation and to consider significant changes to their operation. For the agencies, this meant that turnover in personnel should not undermine the group’s work. For the conservation groups, this meant that they would need to be open to solution options that differed from their advocacy positions. The group’s efforts almost fell apart on lack-of-commitment grounds, as two of the conservation interests could not, in the end, give up their advocacy goals and did not sign the consensus recommendations, despite having come to consensus on the recommendations’ contents. This development, if anything, solidified the remaining LSSC participants’ commitment to the effort and its long-term implementation.
Courage: I witnessed immense personal courage in this collaboration. The rancher representatives sat at the table with people, most of whom they considered enemies (at least at first). The agency staff sat in the room while being yelled at and insulted by rancher representatives. The conservation interests participated in a collaborative process many of their colleagues viewed as a waste of time, a sellout. Nevertheless, each of the individual representatives had the courage, the vision, the hope to see the possibility that, together, they could accomplish something that none of them could do individually.
Consensus (my additional “C”): In the operating protocols agreed to at the beginning of the collaboration in 2014, the LSSC agreed to make all decisions by consensus: “Consensus has been reached when everyone agrees to accept whatever is proposed after every effort has been made to meet the interests of all participants.” One of the LSSC members cited the use of consensus decision-making as one of the keys to success of the group’s efforts. He described the process of “striving for consensus” perfectly at the reunion: Disagreement is encouraged, but no one can stonewall the process. The person disagreeing should say that they disagree, why they disagree, and present a proposal they think meets all stakeholders’ interests. The process then continues (disagree, say why, give another proposal that you hope meets interests) until consensus is reached. While potentially a lengthy process, this need to continually consider all affected interests promoted final decisions that everyone agreed with and, most importantly, was willing to implement.
I hope that each and every member of the La Sal Sustainability Collaboration is proud of their conflict competence and what they have achieved together. I know how hard they’ve worked to get there. And I look forward to hearing about their continued collaborative accomplishments over the next many years.
Michele Straube was the founding director of the EDR program (2012-2017). She is happily retired, living on a small homestead outside Seattle, and exploring the outdoors with husband, Bob, and puppy, Tux. She recently started her most important job: being an Oma (first grandchild was born Jan. 3, 2025).