A Framework for Assessing Collaborative Capacity in Community-Based Public Forest Management

Abstract

Community-based collaborative groups involved in public natural resource management are assuming greater roles in planning, project implementation, and monitoring. This entails the capacity of collaborative groups to develop and sustain new organizational structures, processes, and strategies, yet there is a lack of understanding what constitutes collaborative capacity. In this paper, we present a framework for assessing collaborative capacities associated with community-based public forest management in the US. The framework is inductively derived from case study research and observations of 30 federal forest-related collaborative efforts. Categories were cross-referenced with literature on collaboration across a variety of contexts. The framework focuses on six arenas of collaborative action: (1) organizing, (2) learning, (3) deciding, (4) acting, (5) evaluating, and (6) legitimizing. Within each arena are capacities expressed through three levels of social agency: individuals, the collaborative group itself, and participating or external organizations. The framework provides a language and set of organizing principles for understanding and assessing collaborative capacity in the context of community-based public forest management. The framework allows groups to assess what capacities they already have and what more is needed. It also provides a way for organizations supporting collaboratives to target investments in building and sustaining their collaborative capacities. The framework can be used by researchers as a set of independent variables against which to measure collaborative outcomes across a large population of collaborative efforts.

Adaptation in Collaborative Governance Regimes

“…Koontz et al (2004) suggest that ''collaborative environmental management offers a flexible approach that can be molded in response to emerging views and knowledge.'' Despite such claims, however, the collaborative governance literature and associated scholarship on collaborative capacity has not focused particularly on adaptive qualities or capacities per se nor has it demonstrated that collaborative governance indeed cultivates such capacities (Cheng and Sturtevant 2012). Furthermore, in most frameworks for collaborative governance, performance outcomes are given short shrift and there is little, if any, treatment of feedback or collective learning that might occasion opportunities for or demonstrate adaptation (Koontz and Thomas 2006;see Gerlak and Heikkila 2011;Cheng and Sturtevant 2012 as exceptions).…”

Science synthesis to support socioecological resilience in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range

“…During times of "crisis, breakdown, and reorganization"-which would include the aftermath of unusually large and severe wildfires-resilience theory suggests that moving beyond conventional decision support systems to decentralized, participatory, and collaborative approaches can help build adaptive capacity , Walker et al 2002. Cheng and Sturtevant (2012) propose a framework for assessing the collaborative capacity of communities in the context of federal forest management. Their framework identifies six arenas of collaboration and associated capacities: organizing, learning, deciding, acting, evaluating, and legitimizing.…”

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