By BOB EKEY

Billings Gazette
Saturday, December 06, 2008

Decades ago, a cigarette company ran an advertising campaign in which actors sported a black eye and declared the slogan "I'd rather fight than switch," as a symbol of their brand loyalty.

From a conservation perspective in Montana, a lot of folks now are saying they'd rather switch than fight - switch tactics away from yesterday's entrenched battles toward new collaboration. Replacing the old winner-takes-all approach with working solutions out on the ground actually takes more effort, but the results are more enduring.

I experienced this firsthand a couple of weeks ago at a meeting in Seeley Lake, where more than 100 people gathered in the community building to discuss the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project, a proposal for Lolo National Forest that includes 87,000 acres of newly designated wilderness, a comprehensive forest restoration program and money for a biomass plant in Seeley Lake.

Mill, naturalists agree
It wasn't too long ago that any meeting about new wilderness or a forest management program would have generated as much heat as a forest fire. At the meeting two weeks ago, everyone who spoke supported the proposal. Wilderness advocates were supporting the forest restoration work, and representatives of Pyramid Mountain Lumber, the local mill, spoke in favor of the new wilderness designation.

The Blackfoot-Clearwater project is an example of how many people are taking a new approach of working together.

These collaborative efforts resemble the grass-roots approach that President-elect Barack Obama used to build his campaign for the White House. The challenge is avoiding the whipsaw of politics of power and replacing it with enduring conservation solutions.

There's no doubt that a new administration will shift some aspects of managing our public lands for the better. A new administration will restore the crucial components of scientific analysis, balance and public participation that have been absent during the past eight years of land management. Spending priorities may also shift in order to better protect landscapes. However, there are also three clear indications that collaboration will be very important to the incoming administration.

First, the new administration has made a promise to govern from the middle. Second, the president-elect is a former grass-roots organizer and understands the power of building coalitions and working with both conservation interests and industry. Third, this administration is smart, and history shows overreaching just doesn't work.

Breaking gridlock
Here in Montana, over the past years we've been involved in many encouraging collaborative efforts to break the gridlock and ill will that too often characterizes public lands work. It's being done by getting diverse groups of stakeholders sitting around the table together to hammer out common goals and then work towards those goals.

For instance, many of us know the story of a coalition of ranchers, hunters and conservationists who came together to protect one of the most special places in Montana, the Rocky Mountain Front. That type of coalition has sticking power because it represents the interests of so many voters and represents a win for any political leader championing it.

In the history of that success there are also new coalitions such as the Montana Forest Restoration Group who are attempting to foster the interests of the timber industry and conservationists by using Montana's timber infrastructure to create more ecologically resilient forests and watersheds. Even Montana's wilderness drought will most definitely be ended by the aforementioned Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project, which has the full support of local governments, diverse interests and is consistent with the Forest Service plan.

Montana model
In all of these efforts, Montanans are providing a model for future public lands work across the country. In so doing, we're learning our lessons from the era of the timber wars and sagebrush rebellions and committing to a future of common-sense solutions.

The collaborative work in Montana is making progress, but it's by no means finalized or completed. With support from the next administration, we can make important strides in moving forward, completing projects and keeping Montana Montana.

Bob Ekey is Northern Rockies regional director for The Wilderness Society based in Bozeman.