In recent years, the US Department of the Interior began forming new collaborative organizations which look at environmental conservation with a much broader perspective. There are now 22 Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) across the country, including one in the Great Basin Region.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was responsible for organizing the new Great Basin LCC – and to do that, they needed help developing a mission, governance, and structure for the new initiative. With a committee of over 25 people representing Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, California, and Utah and including representatives from tribes, NGOs, and the private sector, BLM knew it would be an enormous task, and that they would need help. That’s where we came in - EnviroIssues, working with BLM’s federal partner, the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, joined the Great Basin LCC team at the very beginning.
EI facilitated an engagement process that first developed the guiding framework, and then worked with a multi-party organizing committee to form the Great Basin LCC Steering Committee, Forum and working groups. Finally, we convened and facilitated a basin-wide stakeholder meeting to help get the LCC off the ground – no small undertaking given the size of the LCC!
Now, the Great Basin LCC is going strong, working to achieve the mission they developed during that early process – a process we think was as great as, well, the Great Basin itself.