It has long been DoD policy to encourage stakeholder cooperation on natural resources management issues to maintain and improve natural resources, as outlined in DoD Directive 4715.3. Prior to the enactment of 10 USC 2684a—which authorizes agreements to limit encroachments and other constraints on military training, testing, and operations—the Sikes Act was used as the primary authority for the Secretary of Defense to enter into cooperative agreements. However, Sikes Act authority was almost entirely directed to the protection of resources within the boundaries of DoD installations. The authority of 10 USC 2684a allows for cooperative conservation efforts through the acquisition of land or easements in the vicinity of military installations and ranges, thus adding much needed flexibility to wildlife protection efforts.
Finally, Executive Order No. 13352, Cooperative Conservation, specifically directs federal agencies to develop cooperative conservation programs. The term “cooperative conservation” is often used to describe collaborative efforts and partnerships to achieve conservation goals.
Over the years, cooperative conservation efforts with federal and state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, universities, and museums have provided many opportunities for the DoD to obtain invaluable, cost-effective research and other services in support of its natural resource conservation programs. With the authority of 10 USC2684a, many new cooperative agreements are being established that help to enhance off-base habitat and to ease encroachment problems in the vicinity of military installations.
At their best, efforts at public participation, conservation easements, and memoranda of understanding are examples of effective partnerships between the military and that part of the public that worries about conserving biodiversity. In such cases, “the public” can mean a small but concerned group of citizens who live near an installation, it can be a nationally known nonprofit organization that’s interested in environmental protection, or it can be pretty much anything in between. There are many examples of partnerships currently in operation that promote conservation and further the military mission.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) within the Department of the Interior is one of two federal agencies responsible for managing the Endangered Species List, and so it is in constant demand for consultation by military land managers. Jane Mallory, former natural resource specialist at DoD’s Legacy Resource Management Program, considers the FWS one of the best agency partners. Asked to define a successful collaboration, she said:
“There are several common themes that always come up with successful partnerships. One of them is to provide additional resources. It also enhances available expertise. It builds a network based on trust and teamwork. It facilitates sharing of information and nurture of natural resources. So with these goals in mind, of the successful partnerships we’ve had, the first one on my list is U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But we also have successful partnerships with other agencies— Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service.” Among nongovernmental agencies, Mallory puts The Nature Conservancy at the top of a lengthy list of organizations with conservation partnering expertise.
Mallory also feels that a successful partnership is one that brings with it additional resources—expertise, information, maybe even money—to a conservation plan. Partnerships may be established at many levels—between the installation and nongovernmental organization, or university, or other governmental agency. What’s important is the collaboration that the partnerships foster. Such a collaboration produces “a network based on trust and teamwork,” says Mallory, and it “facilitates sharing of information.” Partnerships to avoid, she said, are those in which the potential partners “have an agenda already, or they have their minds made up [negatively] about the Department of Defense.” However, she adds that “It’s exciting to people to find out that DoD does conservation and natural resources management.”
It helps, say many natural resource managers, to set forth the rules of partnerships in writing. This is often done in a “cooperative agreement” or memorandum of understanding. Many of the buffering partnerships are created under MOUs. A typical agreement or MOU would explain:
- Why the agreement is necessary
- Why the parties to the agreement have been selected (or have selected themselves)
- The purpose of the agreement
- The responsibilities of the agreeing parties
- The financial understandings: Is any partner committing to the expenditure of funds?
- An understanding of how responsibilities and authorities are delegated and administered
- How the agreement may be modified and terminated
Box 6.1: Perspectives on conservation partnering teams (from Powledge 2008)
Steve Helfert of the FWS is a huge fan of what he and others call “conservation partnering teams,” which provide a framework for productive partnerships. A major benefit of using such teams is that the structure practically guarantees “very strong communication lines” among its members. “A typical partnering team,” he said, “would be a group that would agree to meet face-to-face, other than by telephone or e-mail. Meeting face-to-face could mean once a year, perhaps four times a year. An example would be the South Texas Natural Resource Partnership. They meet formally four times per year with a facilitator.” The South Texas group, which covers an area that contains three military installations, takes matters a step further by making sure that installation commanders are part of their process. “They say, ‘We want to add an annual executive briefing to our three installation commanders, to brief them on results of the prior year: what have we been doing, what have we succeeded in, what do we continue to do, what issues there are, what solutions.’” The result, he said, is that the conservation planners remain linked “to that component of the military we call the ‘operations training and range’ part of the military command—the folks in uniform who basically are training our troops. It’s very important to stay engaged and linked with that.”
In addition to creating a more formal conservation planning process and keeping commanders involved and up to date, the teams sometimes are good sources of ideas about how to find more money for biodiversity conservation. Who should the conservation partnership teams include? Helfert thinks that’s one of the first questions the team must tackle. “I would advocate that if indeed there is a conservation partnering team or one in the making, then those local folks look at their local needs. They should ask, ‘Do we need to bring in the county, the local school district, or other local governmental entities that may want to be part of a new partnership?’ It may still be that you have just a core group of the military, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the state natural resources agency. They may be the nucleus of that group to look at any and all particular issues and solutions. Or sometimes the solution is to bring in more local folks as stakeholders or part of the team.”
Helfert said it would not be unusual for the partnering team to seek out local groups, saying “You’ve got something we want you to bring to the table.” Such an invitation would be obvious if encroachment is one of the problems facing an installation. The partnership team needs members “who are willing to think outside the military fence line. They think, ‘Aha, the answers to these issues, including encroachment, obviously are going to involve outside players; I need to put on my beyond-the-fence hat and think externally.’ I need to invite them in. I need to seek their wisdom, their input, if we’re really going to tackle and solve this issue.”
There are good examples of effective partnerships throughout the United States, and many of them are the product of conservation partnership teams, notes Helfert. “The important thing is we all like to think it’s led principally by the military because we’re focusing on military land,” he said. “But it also could go off the [military] lands; it could go around the fenceline. And the leadership may change among the partners, depending on which initiative, which solution. But it’s always going back to the tenet that it will benefit the military.”
Next Page: Characteristics of successful partnerships
Author
David S. Jones, RA IV, Ecologist/Project Manager
Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands
Warner College of Natural Resources
Colorado State University