Public Involvement in Decision Making: Electronic Town Meetings Findings

In 1997 reintroduction of gray wolves (canis lupus) drew national attention to Yellowstone National Park. In a related series of events, an environmental organization, Defenders of Wildlife, proposed to United States representative Norm Dicks of Washington that reintroduction of wolves be considered for the Olympic National Park. Gray wolves, once native and abundant in the area of the Olympic National Park, were exterminated there. Bounties were paid until 1929, and by 1934 wolves were extinct on the Peninsula.

In 1998, Congress allocated $350,000 to study the biological and ecological feasibility of wolf reintroduction and to conduct a public involvement process to identify and describe public issues and concerns about returning wolves to the Olympic National Park. Of the total allocation, Congress appropriated $50,000 to the Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) at the behest of Congressman Dicks and Senator Slade Gorton, to engage those who would be affected by the reintroduction. The appropriation required the public involvement process to "…address thoroughly the potential impacts of wolves on the people and communities that would be directly affected…" ONRC, in Forks, Washington, on the West Side of the Olympic Peninsula, is a component of the University of Washington. Part of ONRC’s mission is to provide an objective forum for public discussion of natural resource management issues. Subsequently, ONRC entered into a contract with the Battelle Seattle Research Center and Elway Research, Inc. of Seattle to assist with involving the public in considering wolf reintroduction.

ONRC wished to give citizens direct input into assessing wolf reintroduction, and Battelle and Elway Research proposed a two-part process: First, to interview representatives from a range of points of view concerning wolf reintroduction, and second, to conduct three town meetings using the Electronic Group Interaction System (EGIS). ONRC and Battelle interviewed people associated with tourism, logging, economic development, environmental organizations, recreational clubs, agriculture and local government. From records of these interviews, ONRC, Battelle, and Elway Research extracted specific comments that became the basis for statements in the electronic town meetings. The appendix of this report includes these 72 statements. ONRC, Battelle, and Elway Research chose the communities of Shelton, Hoquiam, and Forks, Washington, which triangulate the Olympic National Park, as the sites for the meetings. Budget constraints precluded other logical sites.

Electronic town meetings are structured so that citizens can interact primarily by means of individual handsets connected to a computer. At the meetings on the Olympic Peninsula, participants responded to questions and statements about wolves, natural resource management, and the environment of the Olympic Peninsula. Using their handsets, participants anonymously entered their responses to statements and questions. Group responses were instantly tabulated and displayed on a projection screen for all to see.

Although dissension may occur in public discussion about controversial subjects such as the gray wolf, the electronic meeting format helps moderate the atmosphere, common in traditional public meetings, where entrenched, leading, and dominating opinions and personalities often overshadow the proceedings and the outcome. The electronic format lends itself to substantial audience commentary which can be directed by a facilitator.

ONRC, assisted by Battelle and Elway Research, Inc., conducted three electronic town meetings on January 19, 20, and 21, 1999 in Shelton, Hoquiam, and Forks, Washington. One hundred eleven people attended the meeting in Shelton, 135 in Hoquiam, and approximately 175 in Forks. Handheld polling devices were available for 100-110 participants at each meeting.

We stated at the outset that the purpose of the meetings was to determine and define what citizens thought needed to be taken into account in considering whether or not wolves should be reintroduced into Olympic National Park. It was necessary to remind participants, thoughout all of the meetings, of the origin of the statments, particularly those with which thy vehemently disagreed.

In order for participants to become familiar with the handheld polling devices, we began the interactive part of the meetings by asking participants to react to a series of demographic questions. They were then asked to respond to statements derived from the 24 interviews. For each statement, participants could indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed on a six-point scale. The appendix of this report presents a tabulation of responses to the 72 statements. (Due to computer failure, we lost responses to the last 10 statements from the Forks meeting.) It was necessary to remind participants, throughout all of the meetings, of the origin of the statements, particularly those with which they vehemently disagreed. In Forks, in particular, participants called the statements into question. Later in this report we discuss this skepticism about taking statements at face value.

Those participating in the wolf meetings selected themselves. News stories in the press and on radio in the weeks preceding the meetings encouraged participation. We considered a random selection of participants, chosen from voter lists from precincts surrounding the Olympic National Park, but finally rejected that approach as the experience of Elway Research suggested that:

We judged that, given the controversy surrounding the issue, which was verified in the interviews, we needed to place no restrictions on who could attend the meetings other than that those responding with the handheld devices be residents of one of the four counties adjacent to the national park. The respondent groups were therefore self-selecting.

Because of this decision, we heard criticism that the results of the meetings lacked the scientific or statistical validity that a randomly-selected group might have provided. There is a distinction between reliability (are we measuring things correctly?) and validity (are we measuring the right things?). We believe that either type of selection process can reveal valid data about citizen values. We also recognize that the expressions of self-selected groups cannot be attributed to wider populations.

Resolution of the wolf reintroduction question was not the goal of these meetings. Ecological assessments underway by federal and state agencies would presumably answer questions of biological feasibility. The goal of our work was to identify and define public interests and concerns. The objectives of these meetings were:

These objectives dictated that we provide the public a unique forum in which to discuss this issue. Public meetings on issues such as northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and other resource controversies have failed to heal the polarity among communities of interest. Public hearings may be dominated by experts or representatives of interest groups, and may not allow sufficient participation by unaffiliated citizens. At worst, public meetings may cement entrenched polar opposition, become attempts to stampede decision-makers, or degenerate, in the words of a veteran practitioner of public participation, into "the last of the blood sports."

Traditional poll data can be statistically quantified, but polls tend to be discounted in controversial issues by everyone but those who commission them. Electronic town meetings have been held on many controversial issues, in many states, including Washington, and our experience has been that participants relate afterward that they have had a fair opportunity to be heard. This seemed to be the objective of Congress, and it was ONRC’s as well.

Of the 300 people responding during the three meetings, approximately two-thirds were male. In each meeting, more than half were older than 50 and almost three-quarters had lived on the Olympic Peninsula for 20 or more years. Between 74% and 89% had camped, hiked, climbed, hunted and/or fished in the last two years.

More than two-thirds of those participating opposed the reintroduction of wolves to the Olympic National Park (91% in Forks, 71% in Hoquiam, 66% in Shelton). But, as we discuss later in this report, we learned that this opposition is directed at more than wolves. During the initial interviews, it became apparent that the wolf is in many ways a surrogate for concerns about government regulation, about political power, about the relationship of human beings to nature, and about the value and future of logging communities and the skills and values they foster. The results of the interviews and the town meetings make it clear that the wolf is a lightning rod for questions and fears about who makes political decisions and who has to live with them. The wolf is emblematic of the contest between "communities of interest" and "communities of place."

During initial interviews, a number of respondents described wolf reintroduction as a mechanism for exerting additional control and regulation over the use of land. They told us that they were concerned that wolf reintroduction might be a way for the Olympic National Park and the Park Service to increase their influence over, and possibly their holdings of, land adjacent to the Park. When responding to statement #17: "The Park Service is making it increasingly hard for people to use the Olympic National Park," forty-nine percent in Shelton agreed or strongly agreed; 72% in Hoquiam; and 86% in Forks. In response to statement #45: "Reintroducing wolves would result in more of the Park being reserved for scientific uses while ordinary people’s use is being restricted," 56% of respondents in Shelton, 66% in Hoquiam, and 76% in Forks strongly agreed.

A majority of respondents were skeptical about the ability of government agencies to control reintroduced wolves. In response to statement # 56: "Controlling the wolves is beyond the capacity of the agencies who will be responsible for doing it," sixty-eight percent of respondents in Shelton agreed or strongly agreed, as did 78% in Hoquiam, and 94% in Forks. Similarly, in response to statement # 38: "Reintroducing wolves to the Peninsula would be acceptable if we could be assured that they would be controlled," 66% of respondents in Shelton strongly disagreed, as did 67% in Hoquiam, and 88% in Forks. In addition, several of those interviewed were skeptical of programs to compensate for wolf depredation, calling into question both the timeliness and the adequacy of compensation.

Respondents in the interviews and the town meetings stated their belief that wolves would move out of the Park, particularly in the winter, down into the river valleys on the west side of the Peninsula, and threaten livestock and pets.

A strong theme running through responses during both the interviews and the public meetings was concern about the declining numbers of Roosevelt elk outside the Park on both the west side and in the Hood Canal drainages of the Peninsula. In particular, representatives of the Point no Point Treaty Tribes expressed concern about declining numbers of elk and the importance of elk to tribal traditions. Many respondents questioned the wisdom of adding wht they saw as a cumulative burden of predtaion onto struggling populations of elk and BlackTail deer.

A strong theme running through responses during both the interviews and the public meetings was concern about the declining numbers of Roosevelt Elk outside the Park on both the west side and in the Hood Canal drainages of the Peninsula. In particular, representatives of the Point No Point Treaty Tribes expressed concern about declining numbers of elk and the importance of elk to tribal traditions. Many respondents questioned the wisdom of adding what they saw as a cumulative burden of predation onto struggling populations of elk and BlackTail deer. (Statement #52: "I have concerns that deer and elk populations on the Peninsula are not sufficiently strong to support all the predators," seventy-three percent of respondents in Shelton strongly agreed with this statement, as did 78% in Hoquiam, and 92% in Forks.) It is likely that implicit in this response is a desire to have elk and deer available for human hunting - a strong tradition, particularly on the West End of the Peninsula. Interview results indicate that the view of the wolf as a wily, untrustworthy competitor to humans remains among some residents of the Peninsula.

In a well-articulated minority opinion, some of those interviewed agreed in various ways with a respondents's comment that "even more than the wolves needing the Park, the Park needs the wolves." Thirty-six percent of participants in Shelton and 27% of those responding in Hoquiam either strongly agreed or agreed with the Statement #22: "Wolf reintroduction on the Peninsula is a rare opportunity becuase there are so few places in the country where the natural community is almost complete." Eleven percent of participants in Forks strongly agreed or agreed with this statement.

In a well-articulated minority opinion, some of those interviewed agreed in various ways with a respondent’s comment that "even more than the wolves needing the Park, the Park needs thewolves." Thirty-six percent of participants in Shelton and 27% of those responding in Hoquiam either strongly agreed or agreed with the Statement #22: "Wolf reintroduction on the Peninsula is a rare opportunity because there are so few places in the country where the natural community is almost complete." Eleven percent of participants in Forks strongly agreed or agreed with this statement. One respondent during an interview said that Roosevelt elk have been essential to the evolution of the Olympic Peninsula’s temperate rainforest ecosystem and that the wolf was essential to the evolution of the elk.

In a somber note for public perception of participatory democracy, 58% of participants in Shelton and 55% in Hoquiam disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement #66: "There is an opportunity with this wolf issue to make a decision in a way that is not so offensive to the community as the spotted owl decision." This reaction indicates that people do not feel that the public decision-making process serves them well, and that their views will count. Another aspect of this public sentiment is brought to light by responses to statement #65: "Most decisions about the use of natural resources on the Peninsula do not put people into the equation," a statement with which 55% of respondents in Shelton and 68% in Hoquiam strongly agreed. (Due to computer failure, results are not available for statements 65 and 66 from the Forks meeting.) This alienation has implications for the democratic process, and specifically for those with responsibility for engaging the public in decision-making about the management of natural resources.

Participants continually expressed that they were so suspicious about how their response might be misinterpreted that they were not about to give a thoughtful answer to this or that statement, regardless of how hypothetical it was. That is, to anti-wolf participants in particular, there were no hypothetical questions. They seemed determined to give one answer: "No Wolves!"

In 33 of 49 statements read in Forks, at least 65% answered at one pole or another on a six-point scale. This was often 70-80%. Although a majority of participants at all three sites was at one polar end or another in 27 of these questions, the tendency to dismiss issues or to view them as black or white was more defined in Forks. The lack of variance implies that participants were thinking less about the individual statements than about the consequences of the answer. Indeed participants continually expressed that they were so suspicious about how their response might be misinterpreted that they were not about to give a thoughtful answer to this or that statement, regardless of how hypothetical it was. That is, to anti-wolf participants in particular, there were no hypothetical questions. They seemed determined to give one answer: "No wolves!"

The open skepticism about the statements in Forks leads us to the conclusion that after a point in the Forks meeting, people stopped considering statements individually and instead used their shared reaction as a means of showing solidarity with a community they feel has been misused by decision-making about the management of natural resources. In a way, the meeting became a way for the community to draw together, to "circle the wagons" psychologically and emotionally against powerful forces that they feel affect the community’s economic future and their livelihoods and quality of life, but over which they feel they have insufficient control.

It is instructive to note that, in Shelton and Hoquiam particularly, about one in five participants were still answering on the "pro-wolf" end of the scale at the end of the two-hour meeting. It is doubtful that, absent the ability to respond anonymously via the EGIS, that so many would have expressed that minority opinion after two hours in a typical public meeting or hearing.

The Shelton meeting had a significant public sector/government contingent. This, along with Shelton’s proximity to urban centers and the Washington state capitol may have made the audience more tuned to concepts like World Heritage Sites and the positive role of the Olympic National Park (ONP). Hoquiam and Shelton have similar numbers (24/32%) who said (statement #19:) "Reintroducing wolves would fulfill the role and purpose of the ONP"; 68/59% said it would not. Similar numbers also connect the Hoquiam and Shelton groups when responding to statement #23: "It would be wrong to bring wolves back into an environment that has changed so much.", and statement #24: "Reintroducing wolves would restore balance to the Park’s ecosystem."

Responses to statements about effects on daily lives and human safety were mixed. (For example, statements #30 and 32: "Reintroduced wolves would have a very positive to very negative impact on my day-to-day life", and "Wolves in the Park will pose a significant to no threat to people in communities neighboring the Park." While statistical interpretation of these responses is questionable, we suggest that human safety and disruption of daily routines are not the principal contributors to opinions about wolves. Note also statements #42, #44, #47.)

Respondents offered quite a sophisticated response to statement #35, which shows great concern about the effects of wolf reintroduction on logging, while the response to statement #34 shows somewhat less concern about effects on forest management. (Statement #35: "Reintroduction of wolves will end up in further restrictions on logging and timber management." Statement #34: "The reintroduction of wolves would constitute an obstacle to commercial management of forests.") As might be expected, people on the Olympic Peninsula understand that there is a difference in being able to grow trees and being able to harvest them.

On the issue of competitive predators, wolves versus cougars, responses to Statement #49 show a significant level of misinformation (according to wildlife biologists). (Statement #49: "Wolves would keep cougars on the Peninsula in check, chasing them off their prey, even killing them.") If wolves will in fact compete successfully with cougars for prey, there needs to be more community education than has been offered to date.

In contrast, citizen knowledge about elk herds (Statements #50-54) is quite extensive, and there is a strong harmony of agreement that elk populations must be strong for wolves to survive. (For example, 65% of respondents in Shelton, 73% in Hoquiam, and 70% in Forks strongly agreed with Statement #51: "Unless the populations of deer and elk are sufficiently strong, wolves should not be reintroduced to the Peninsula.")

On the issue of tourism, by contrast, the respondents were sharply divided on the likely behavior of tourists in relation to a population of reintroduced wolves. (Statement #46: "Having wolves in the Park will result in more/fewer tourists coming to the Park.") In Shelton, 38% of participants responded "more" and 33% responded "fewer." In Hoquiam 21% responded "more" and 36% "fewer," and in Forks 18% responded "more" and 56% responded "fewer."

Respondents also exhibit an appreciation, in Shelton and Hoquiam, if less so in Forks, of the needs of intact ecosystems. For example, 62% of respondents in Shelton, 20% in Hoquiam, and 4% in Forks strongly agreed with statement #20: "We are morally obligated to set things right by restoring natural systems that mankind has destroyed. Reintroducing wolves to the Olympic Peninsula will help.

Respondents had a solidly positive opinion about the value of the National Park with 81% in Shelton, 71% in Hoquiam, and 47% in Forks agreeing or strongly agreeing with statement #15: "The Olympic National Park is a benefit to communities on the Peninsula." Respondents also exhibit an appreciation in Shelton and Hoquiam, if less so in Forks, of the needs of intact ecosystems. For example, 62% of respondents in Shelton, 20% in Hoquiam, and 4% in Forks strongly agreed with statement # 20: "We are morally obligated to set things right by restoring natural systems that mankind has destroyed. Reintroducing wolves to the Olympic Peninsula will help." In addition, 33% of respondents in Shelton, 20% in Hoquiam, and 10% in Forks strongly agreed with statement #22: "Wolf reintroduction on the Peninsula is a rare opportunity because there are so few places left in the country where the natural community is almost complete." Yet they also are skeptical about the motives of the Park Service. For example, 39% of participants in Shelton, 63% in Hoquiam, and 80% in Forks strongly agreed with statement # 17: "The Park Service is making it increasingly hard for people to use the Olympic National Park." Participants were also skeptical about the ability of the agencies to allocate resources to protect against harm from wolves. For example, 63% of participants in Shelton, 73% in Hoquiam, and 89% in Forks strongly agreed with statement #57: "Monitoring and controlling the wolves will cost more than it is worth." This suggests that the resource management plans of agencies may erode good will in the community, which is disturbing, especially since the National Park Service is generally considered a "white hat’" federal agency.

The common ground that did emerge appeared in the interviews. In these detailed discussions we found an appreciation among all respondents for the Olympic Peninsula's natural environment and the range of recreational opportunities and aesthetic values it offers: A sense of community, and a good quality of life, free of the traffic congestion, urban crowding and crime of the I-5 corridor.

There was not much common ground revealed in these meetings between those who advocate and those who oppose reintroduction of wolves. The common ground that did emerge appeared in the interviews. In these detailed discussions we found an appreciation among all respondents for the Olympic Peninsula’s natural environment and the range of recreational opportunities and aesthetic values it offers. People across the spectrum of views concerning wolf reintroduction spoke of how important it is to know that a beautiful, healthy, and varied natural environment is close at hand and will be available for their children. One respondent captured this sense in talking hopefully about the sense of continuity with the past a healthy and resilient natural system provides him and his community. A sense of community, and a good quality of life, free of the traffic congestion, urban crowding, and crime of the I-5 corridor, were attributes all our respondents valued.

People who run public meetings about natural resource issues have become extremely frustrated at the public distrust and animosity they encounter. As the stakes get larger and resource scarcity demands more zero-sum decisions from public agencies, the framework for decision-making becomes more difficult. Agencies are increasingly locked into legally defined public processes, guided by NEPA and open meeting requirements, but they also at times take refuge behind those frustrating processes.

We exposed a nerve in these electronic meetings, which triggered significant public response (175 people showed up in Forks, on a night when the local high school played an at-home basketball game). It pulsed through some agency personnel and wildlife activists, who may have viewed with alarm the public outburst of distrust and alienation in the meetings.

Later, the Peninsula Daily News, of Port Angeles, while commenting that "many folks who live north and east of the national park were saddened that an electronic town meeting . . .wasn't held in their region", decided to offer its entire editorial page to reprint the text of the town meeting questions and ask people to fill out and send in their responses. In a subsequent editorial page (Peninsula Daily News, Sunday, January 31, 1999), the results from 847 respondents were published. We would like to refer the reader of this report to the results of the Daily News "poll" of its readers, which parallels the town meeting responses.

Later, the Peninsula Daily News, of Port Angeles, while commenting that "many folks who live north and east of the national park were saddened that an electronic town meeting … wasn’t held in their region", decided to offer its entire editorial page to reprint the text of the town meeting questions and ask people to fill out and send in their responses. In a subsequent editorial page (Peninsula Daily News, Sunday January 31, 1999), the results from 847 respondents were published. We would like to refer the reader of this report to the results of the Daily News "poll" of its readers, which parallels the town meeting responses.

The wolf meetings illustrate how important it is that agencies examine the current process of public deliberation, and the division of opposing views between: (1) those who believe that public views not informed by scientific explanation are useless; and (2) those who believe that "communities of place" must have more weight in deciding natural resources issues. The former consider public perception and sentiment interesting, but not vital to resource decisions. ("Once we tell them what we know, they will revise their values and they’ll accept.") The latter believe that resource decisions have generally excluded their opinions, and they will be over-ridden by political and social forces beyond their control. This concern strengthens their resolve and community solidarity.

The Yellowstone and Olympic experiences are both about wolves, yet neither is about wolves. Planning that is focused on the rightness of science and expert decision-making to the exclusion of social values and social justice will constantly run into a skeptical public that believes agency decisions are pre-made. They resort in these cases to trumpeting their values, their disdain for the process they are attending, and their cohesion to their community of interest.

This report cannot examine these issues in depth, but we can report what we observed and what others might consider in retrospect. We do know that the wellspring of distrust of federal agency decision-making revealed in these meetings and preceding interviews is not isolated. Writing about the reintroduction of the Gray Wolf to Yellowstone National Park in "Society and Natural Resources", Matthew Wilson observed that the agencies tapped into a core of social expression about (a) differential access to social power, (b) conflicting ideas about private property, and (c) divergent beliefs about nature.

We learned how critical it is for decision-makers to understand how they and their motives appear to people with whom they want to communicate. In the case of the gray wolf reintroduction, we observed a mixture of what people know (e.g., about elk), what people value (e.g., a way of life; personal decisions about land uses), what people don’t know (e.g., about tourists and personal safety), and what people know that isn’t true (e.g., about cougars vs. wolves). If an agency wants to inform public debate, it must sort out these factors. Facts conflicting with values are understandable and this situation is present in every debate over natural resources. Ignoring values as an important contributor to how people make up their minds is hazardous behavior for any public agency. The wolf has become a hostage in this debate, between those who make decisions and those who have to live with them.

The wolf is a symbol for both sides of a larger debate. One side views "intact" ecosystems as biologically essential, almost a religious objective, and the opposition as uneducated. The other side wants local decisions to override national priorities, and sees wolf advocates as hostile to their economic and recreational interests, even to their way of life. Wolf introduction is no different in this respect from hydroelectric dam removal, and the controversy we observed at these town meetings will be endlessly replayed, unless agency planning ceases to attempt to be a completely rational, technocratic exercise.

Agencies must decide if it is truly too dangerous to openly confront the wellspring of resentment and alienation they so often observe in public meetings. Our facilitator was not harried in these town meetings. In fact, many participants commented about how much they enjoyed being involved. Yet the meetings were criticized as unfair and unscientific, as though the public opportunity had no value. After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s finding that wolves could survive in the Park was announced, one commentator remarked that only "politics" stood in the way of the wolves. Science versus politics was apparently the end of the equation, and values didn’t enter into it.

We believe that these town meetings were an invitation, rather than a threat, for agencies to engage the public more effectively. It is not sufficient to argue that the public needs to educate itself. When people decide that they have to become educated, they often do so because they believe they must defend themselves against a threat. When the stakes are high for people, as they are on the Olympic Peninsula, and when the history of policy decisions has been hard on people’s livelihood, as it has on the Peninsula, scientists must accept a role in a creative interaction – not to "educate" people, but to help citizens and scientists learn from what each knows. Science and values become parts of the equation that leads to better decisions.

Should science precede or support the public/political process? Did the town meetings suffer from a lack of science or was their value in that they exposed critical non-science issues in the public process that was being followed by the agencies?

Agencies around the country who have decided to stop worrying about whether science should support or lead decisions have engaged people in truly innovative ways over the last ten to fifteen years. Many of these efforts are negotiations or mediations, often local and decentralized, with science playing a supportive role to the principals. When decisions like wolf reintroduction are on the table, agencies need to determine how they can most effectively use science to respond to public concerns. We think that the decentralized models that are being used successfully by various agencies can be applied on the Peninsula. (A recent example of an innovative decision process is the successful negotiation of water allocations on the Platte River, involving Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming.)

This is a difficult position for scientists, many of whom have had their own bad experiences (or shabby treatment) in public forums, where their findings were disdained and their credibility impugned. A caveat for both scientist and citizen is that we can also cite examples where a successful public involvement process has an unsuccessful public decision outcome, where the process has been overwhelmed by political power. The town meetings about wolf reintroduction were a different type of forum that elicited the views of each individual citizen and immediately displayed the cumulative results. This process avoided the domination of discussion by interest groups typical of public hearings.

While one might criticize the dynamic that emerged, the model can be modified and used to benefit communication between agencies and citizens. We suggest that the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies as well, should accept that they have some latitude to use a variety of public engagement processes beyond those set forth in NEPA. Perhaps it also is time that Congress, which made these town meetings possible for consideration of wolf reintroduction, authorize and encourage federal and state agencies to step beyond the NEPA-model process that has led to some of the distrust that we observed.

We observed, from the interviews and town meetings, that there are many issues about which the Park and local citizens agree. What would happen if the Olympic National Park were to engage citizens in describing the future of the Park? What we are suggesting is that a local public with the experience of having their views and values genuinely considered and included in decision making will be less likely to use the public involvement process to excoriate state and federal agencies.

We observed, from the interviews and town meetings, that there are many issues about which the Park and local citizens agree. What would happen if the Olympic National Park were to engage citizens in describing the future of the Park? Would people propose that roads be built through the interior of the Park? That five-star resorts be built at Hurricane Ridge and Shi-Shi Beach?

Perhaps some might, but we think that there is more public agreement about maintaining the natural integrity and appearance of the Park into the future than may be apparent today. That preferred future, if explored in partnership with Peninsula citizens, might reveal a consensus for a diverse ecosystem. That future may or may not contain the wolf.

We are suggesting that a local public, with the experience of having their views and values genuinely considered and included in decision-making, will be less likely to use the public involvement process to excoriate state and federal agencies. Decentralized decision-making (i.e., taking a less formal and institutionalized approach to dealing with the public) on natural resource issues could break through the logjam of miscommunication. Taking a leap into identifying more broadly-supported natural resource policies or a common Olympic National Park future will encounter inertia and perhaps the fear of learning what people really believe. We believe, however, from our experience in Shelton, Hoquiam and Forks, that the Park and other agencies could engage citizens in a vigorous exploration that would be constructive for both the Park and for the environmental and economic health of Olympic Peninsula communities.