 * Critical Finding * THE FEATHER RIVER COORDINATED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (CRM) GROUP * Coalition for Unified Recreation in the Eastern Sierra
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* The Feather River Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) Group Fierce polarization around natural resource use and management, a growing recognition that continued battles would only further local anguish and lead to continued loss of local control, and recognition of the need to develop local economic opportunities through local watershed restoration projects all led to the development of the Feather River Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) Group. Begun in 1985, the Feather River CRM Group, which encourages local initiative and participation in resource management on public and private land in the headwaters of the State Water Project, is the longest running CRM group and one of the most successful in the state of California. The birth of the Feather River CRM took place in 1985 when, following local initiative, twelve federal, state, regional, and local entities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the objectives of optimizing beneficial uses of water; emphasizing education and prevention over regulation; and resolving participants' concerns through proactive involvement in a consensus-based planning process. After several erosion control project successes, the groups cooperating under the MOU decided to become an official Coordinated Resource Management Planning (CRMP) Group. As Mike Kossow, one of original organizers of the group, stated, "We were a CRMP but just didn't know it yet." The decision to become a CRMP group was in part to foster better coordination among resource management agencies and in part to gain increased access to federal programs and grants for work on public and private land. Although CRMP formation led to a new institutional structure for the group, members did not hesitate to modify this structure to meet their specific needs and values. The commitment of the group to maintaining a results-focused process and an emphasis on projects and not just planning, led the group to drop the P (for planning) in the CRMP name and call itself the Feather River CRM. The remediation of cumulative watershed damage remained a primary objective of the group. The Feather River CRM has achieved considerable success by developing a process that reflects the particular ecological, institutional, and social contexts of the CRM area and links a range of ecological, institutional, and social goals. The coordinator of the CRM, Leah Wills, is personally and professionally committed to a vision of economic and ecological sustainability, a vision that has been embraced by most if not all CRM members. This joining together around common goals has reduced tensions and increased cooperation both between public agencies and landowners and between agencies themselves. The process has also stimulated personnel at different agencies to undertake cooperative projects. One observer of the Feather River CRM noted that the group represents an important evolutionary phase of bringing communities together around sustainable development, and in a way that is not theoretical but concrete and grounded. In roughly ten years of operation, the Feather River CRM has initiated thirty-eight watershed restoration projects on 4,100 acres, rehabilitated 14.5 stream miles, and contributed $4 million dollars to the local economy, mostly through creation of local jobs. The ability of a wide range of individuals representing varied (and often historically conflicting) institutions to come together around a common goal has been deemed the most important success of the CRM. A fundamental quality of the Feather River CRM process has been that members have been able to subjugate their individual differences to the larger mutual goal of a healthy community in a healthy watershed. By demonstrating the real benefits of cooperation, the CRM has created a local atmosphere of increased trust that catalyzes additional community-building activities and allows other consensus-based groups, such as the Quincy Library Group, to grow and flourish. 
 
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