Collaborative Salmon Recovery Planning:Examining Decision Making and Implementationin Northeastern Oregon

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Collaborative and consensus-based approaches to natural resource management planning have become increasingly applied and analyzed in the United States (e.g., Barham 2001; Innes et al. 1994; Selin and Schuett 2000; Susskind and Cruikshank 1987; Wondelleck 2000). However, there has been insufficient attention on implementation (Imperial 1999, 452) and whether these efforts affect both decision-making processes and ecological goals. This article begins to address this gap by examining the implementation of a collaborative salmon recovery plan developed in northeastern Oregon's Wallowa County. Based on data gathered during seventeen months of sociological, anthropological and archival research, the article argues that the plan has not shaped resource management decision making due to preexisting institutional, socioeconomic, and ideological pressures. Nonetheless, the collaborative effort has had other important second-order effects, including the forging of a new alliance between the Nez Perce Tribe and residents of Wallowa County around land and natural resource issues that may, over time, change the local political and management landscapes.