Abrams, JesseDavis, Emily JaneEllison, AutumnMoseley, CassandraNowell, Branda2016-10-312016-10-312016https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2057016 pagesMany rural communities across the U.S. West were profoundly affected by economic and policy changes in the 1990s and early 2000s. Sudden shifts in federal land policies, restructuring of forestry and agriculture industries, and demographic changes led to social conflict and the decline of economic activities that had provided jobs and community identities for decades. In the wake of these changes, rural community members experimented with a variety of grassroots approaches to healing social divisions, creating new economic opportunities, and reinventing their relationships to nearby lands and waters. The best-known outcome of these grassroots experiments is the widespread adoption of collaborative decision-making processes for the governance of public lands. Through such processes, historically conflictive interests build trust and relationships while pursuing land management projects that meet social, ecological, and economic objectives. Collaboration is now considered an indispensable component of decision-making on public lands and is used in other contexts including mixed-ownership landscapes and in decision-making regarding watershed protection and restoration.en-USCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USCommunity organizationRural developmentWorking Paper