Implementers and Innovators: the Many Roles of Community-Based Organizations in Public Lands Governance in the American West.

There have been significant shifts in the roles that the state and markets play in the rural American West. The federal government, as owner and manager of over half of all western acreage, has seen its efficacy and legitimacy decline in the wake of policy changes mandating greater analysis, disclosure, consultation, and external review of decisions, combined with diminishing budgets and expanding obligations to respond to wildfires. Private timber firms have subsequently retreated from most rural, public lands-proximate communities in search of greater profitability and reliability of supply elsewhere. In many communities, novel civil society organizations have stepped into the breach to address losses in wealth, wellbeing, and access to natural resources. These community-based organizations (CBOs) have increasingly taken over tasks once performed by the state and private industry and they have attempted to transform and recreate outmoded institutions in the process. Unlike the state and private firm actors they replace, CBOs are centrally concerned with creating community benefits and reconciling the tensions between environmental sustainability, economic viability, and social equity. Yet in comparison to agencies and corporations, CBOs are tiny and operate with limited resources. This paper explores how CBOs employ nimble approaches and significant local and extra-local networks to garner resources and perform institutional work. It also explores the limits to these efforts, especially in the face of persistent institutional legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]