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PART I INTRODUCTION <br />CHAPTER ONE: <br />PROBLEM AND SIGNIFICANCE <br />Brought to the negotiating table by the requirements of the Endangered Species Act, <br />representatives of the Department of Interior and three states-Colorado, Nebraska, and <br />Wyoming-have been negotiating the terms and conditions under which they will collaboratively <br />organize to re-regulate about 11% of the average annual surface flow of the Platte River (as <br />measured near Omaha, Nebraska) in conjunction with restoring 29,000 acres of critical habitat <br />for whooping cranes, piping plovers, and least terns. In addition, they are prepared to test the <br />hypothesis that the basin-wide recovery program will demonstrably serve needs of pallid <br />sturgeon, although efforts on behalf of the fish will not be addressed here due to limits of space. <br />Most parties hope that recovery program negotiations are now in their late stages but, at the very <br />earliest, any agreement will not be ready for signing until late 2003. It now appears probable that <br />negotiations may continue beyond that marker. <br />Questions <br />Two sets of questions are paramount. First, there are descriptive questions to be <br />addressed. What is the ecosystem issue? How do water users, environmentalists, state and <br />federal authorities find themselves locked into a prolonged discussion focusing on how to <br />mitigate the problem? What are the agendas of the participants? What are their options and how <br />do they exert themselves in probletn-solving? How does science play a role? The second <br />question set is analytical and will be examined at the beginning and end of this essay. Why do <br />perfectly rational resource appropr.iators neglect environmental matters in the first place? What <br />does it take to mobilize them to undertake concerted and collaborative action to preserve <br />available remnants of high quality habitat and restore degraded segments? Case studies can <br />never provide adequate testing of rrypotheses, but they can generate propositions worthy of <br />further consideration. <br />The descriptive questions vvill be addressed part by part, chapter by chapter in the <br />discussions that follow this chapteir. Analytical questions require brief explanation. <br />Analytical Perspective <br />Why will rational resource users degrade environments? What can be done to mobilize <br />these same users to stop and then reverse environmental degradation? A tradition of inquiry in <br />the social sciences has emerged over the last three decades that has closely examined problems of <br />natural resource degradation, requisites of effective mobilization to reverse matters, and <br />attributes of the most effective long-enduring resource management organizations (Bromley <br />1992); (Baden and Noonan 1998);i(Freeman 1989);(Freeman 2000);(McKay and Acheson <br />1987);(Ostrom 1994);(Young 1982);(Young 1999). The essence of the matter is that rationality <br />is not a single thing. That thought is hardly a new insight. What is rational for the individual may