Michael Hibbard

Saving Land but Losing Ground Challenges to Community Planning in the Era of Participation

Over the past quarter century, normative planning theory has argued that planning should be participatory. And a body of empirical studies has found that mainstream planning practice is participatory in some sense. At the same time, however, there is a competing body of empirical studies that disputes the claim that planning is participatory in any meaningful way. As participation becomes more and more prominent in shaping the practice of local government planning, it is important to try to shed light on this apparent contradiction. To that end, the authors have investigated the development of the most recent comprehensive plan for Jackson/Teton County, Wyoming. What appeared to be a process of high involvement and inclusiveness did not lead to community consensus around the plan, nor did it affirm the merits of planning. This study is an exploration of why participatory planning failed to achieve its potential in a community with a history of local problem solving.

The Split Personality of Planning Indigenous Peoples and Planning for Land and Resource Management

The international movement toward recognition of indigenous rights over the past thirty years has created a number of complex and compelling issues in planning for the use of land and natural resources. Planning should have much to say about many of these issues, given its concern for the use of land and resources, its focus on problem-solving, and its normative disposition. There is, however, only a modest literature on indigenous planning. Thus, we draw on the planning literature, but also call heavily on work from associated disciplines to introduce to planning scholars some of the problems and opportunities indigenous communities face with respect to land and resource management.

Doing It for Themselves Transformative Planning by Indigenous Peoples

Colonial processes of territorial acquisition and state formation have constituted a continuous assault on the political and cultural autonomy of the indigenous peoples of the New World. In recent decades, indigenous claims for land justice and resource sovereignty have posed considerable legal and political challenges for postsettler states. Planning offers an indispensable conceptual and operational lens through which to examine state responses to indigenous claims. The authors use case studies to explore the utility, contribution, and key features of planning undertaken as a means of resolving resource conflicts, enhancing indigenous capacity to regain and manage custodial lands, and developing community autonomy.

Community-Based Natural Resource Management: Ideals and Realities for Oregon Watershed Councils

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is presented as an alternative to conventional, top-down approaches to natural resource governance. It entails local, place-based projects, programs, and policies that have the goal of advancing healthy environments and human communities. CBNRM promises Jeffersonian ideals of civil society—local citizens participating in democratic decision making to create and maintain robust communities. Implementing CBNRM requires different institutions and organizational structures than those created during the rise of the administrative state. Watershed councils are a particularly pertinent example of CBNRM in practice. What are the issues facing watershed councils in a policy environment that places significant expectations and responsibilities on such entities? Drawing from a larger study of Oregons watershed councils, this article explores some of the institutional and organizational realities of watershed councils in the current policy environment.

By the seat of your pants: indigenous action and state response

John Friedmann has summed up well the idealism that probably attracts most planners to the field. He characterizes planning as “a calling that implie(s) an ethical commitment to the future, a commitment to make a difference in the world” (Friedmann, 2002, p. 151). Nowhere is that calling more apposite than in planning with indigenous communities. Based on our extensive experience in planning with indigenous communities, Hibbard in the US and Lane in Australia, this article explores the contribution of planning to resolving resource conflicts between indigenous and non-indigenous actors. We are especially keen to show the possibilities of planning as a way to strengthen indigenous communities’ autonomy and their capacity to regain and manage their custodial lands. Numerous scholars and practitioners have argued that the question of indigenous peoples’ capacity to guide and control their own fate, their sovereignty, is one of the most important issues confronting post-colonial states today (see, e.g. Cornell, 1988; Howitt et al. 1996; Ivison et al. 2000; Rangan & Lane, 2001; Zaferatos, 1998). Those involved in the sovereignty rights movement that emerged around the world in the 1970s think of sovereignty in terms of three interlocking matters: how to have some measure of political autonomy; how to maintain particular sets of social relations and more or less distinct cultural orders; and how to maintain or regain control over resources, especially land. The demand of indigenous peoples for sovereignty emerges, in part, because of the

Planning, governance and rural futures in Australia and the USA: revisiting the case for rural regional planning

Rural regions in post-industrial countries confront significant new challenges, particularly in relation to climate, biodiversity, unconventional resource development and energy. Yet at a time when the contours of these challenges are still being sketched, and preliminary, planned interventions undertaken, the practice of rural planning finds itself at a low ebb. We examine two ‘critical cases’, one each from Australia and the USA, to explore the issues and options for capacity of rural regional planning to surmount these new challenges. Our examination indicates the urgent need for a renewed discourse on rural regional planning.

The New Natural Resource Economy: Environment and Economy in Transitional Rural Communities

Recent developments in resource management suggest an important opportunity to address the declining socioeconomic health of rural communities struggling to fill the gap left by the transformation of primary production in agriculture and natural resources. Commodity production creates direct links between producers and urban centers, bypassing rural communities and making them economically redundant. A range of activities have emerged in the last 20 years—watershed restoration, community forestry, sustainable agriculture, and ecosystem services, for example—that constitute a “new natural resource economy” (NNRE) that can help diversify rural economies while also enhancing environmental, social, and cultural assets. Constituent components of NNRE have been studied, but there has been no attempt to map the whole territory. In this article we report the findings from a scoping survey and three case studies, as a first cut at describing the NNRE economic sector and identifying barriers to its development.

Wildland Fire Management as Conservation-Based Development: An Opportunity for Reservation Communities?

This article explores the economic and cultural development potential of wildland fire management for American Indian communities. Wildland fire management provides opportunities to engage in “conservation-based development”—helping communities to strengthen their connections with the land, improve ecosystem health, stimulate small-business development, and reduce their risk from fire. Indian communities—many of which are rural and dependent on natural resources for their cultural, spiritual, and economic livelihood—are an important example of the potential of wildland fire management for conservation-based development. To examine this potential we asked the question: What are the opportunities and issues for fire-management activities to augment tribal economies, providing jobs and small-business development opportunities while restoring the ecosystem and providing opportunities for cultural development? To answer the question we interviewed representatives of all federally recognized tribes in the Pacific Northwest.

Introduction to Symposium: Is Progressive Regionalism an Actionable Framework for Critical Planning Theory and Practice?:

This symposium is the most recent in a series of activities by the guest editors, aimed at advancing planning scholarship under the rubric of progressive regionalism. Progressive regionalism is concerned with equity and sustainability in the search for innovative ways to improve urban and regional development - that is, with solutions that are networked, systems-oriented, globally-minded, ecologically sound and holistic. The strengths and weaknesses of progressive regionalism merit careful analysis and debate. The authors in this symposium address aspects of the question: Does progressive regionalism cohere as an actionable framework for critical planning theory and practice?

Planning the Global Countryside:Comparing Approaches to Teaching Rural Planning

Planning is largely an urban field. While the issues facing megacities around the world have received a great deal of attention from plan ners, the converse of global urbanization— global rural decline—has occurred. The latter is also becoming the focus of significant schol arship. To explore the impacts of globalization on rural areas, we made a comparative assess ment of how rural planning is conceptualized and taught in the three nations with the larg est economies: Germany, Japan, and the U.S. We begin with a discussion of the meaning of rurality and a summary of the issues facing rural Germany, Japan, and the U.S. We then report on education for rural planning in the three countries. We conclude with a brief discussion of the challenges that globalization presents to rural planners.