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41 . Utilize detailed MOD's (collaboratively written) to ensure the commitment of upper-level management. . Use a self-selection process to ensure that you get persons that are committed. This may also help to avoid some aspects of FACA. Develop specillc criteria for selection. Coordinating Public Involvement From A Basin-Wide Perspective Issues In river management we all deal with boundaries, both artificial and real: W & S rivers, BLM, USFS, USF&W, and NPS boundaries, Wilderness areas, private lands, multiple use lands, grazing allotments, hydroelectric darns, Corps of Engineers, power companies, agricultural lands, water rights, State Fish & Game, and NMFS, just to name a few. These different boundaries are as much related to differences in philosophy, and mandate as they are to geographic differences. While we see and understand the boundaries between our areas of responsibility very clearly, the public does not. The public literally perceives of the river as having no boundaries. So it makes sense to begin to coordinate our public involvement efforts, just as we are beginning to coordinate our management efforts in strategies such as the Colorado Ecosystem Partnership. One problem area in basin-wide coordination is communication. How do we expect to be able to communicate effectively with the public when we still have difficulties communicating between agencies? Beyond our differences in mandates we have different and sometimes incompatible data collection and storage teChnologies, our research efforts are fragmented and sometimes redundant, and we don't coordinate our monitoring efforts. Efforts to improve communication have been started but many barriers still exist. An obvious problem with coordination of public involvement is the availability of resources. Will quality coordination between agencies on public involvement efforts take too much extra time and money? Also, just as we are overloaded so to are our interested publics. We flood them with information from our different agencies and overwork them with the level of commitment required to stay involved in the lengthy processes we use. Given these problems and our differences, how do we begin to develop a shared vision of the river resource from the perspectives of our different agencies as well as the people that really own the resource: the American public? Our principle goal should be to develop a shared vision that leads to managing a river as a single, dynamic resource which fulfills many different needs. Ideas I Solutions The following are a few simple ideas which we could begin to implement almost immediately and on which we can begin to builda collaborative public involvement effort at the Basin-wide level. Differences in mandate, responsibilities and geographic boundaries are reasons for coordinating, not barriers to it. We need to recognize that our different mandates are complementary parts of the whole, rather than a good excuse for not working together. For example, the USFS and state Fish and Game agencies have differing but complementary mandates for managing overlapping territories; i.e. one manages the animals and the other is responsible for habitat on which those animals depend. Our differences in responsibilities and skills are really our strength and we should exploit them. We should begin sharing data collection and storage on simple, key elements. The point is to start small, and just pick a few truly key elements, such as user numbers or satisfaction. From there we can begin to build a more comprehensive, shared data base. We should be holding annual public involvement coordination meetings between agencies. We are doing more and more interagency meetings to coordinate management activities. Why not begin meeting annually for the specific purpose of sharing what public involvement activities we are planning and looking for opportunities to Rivers Without Boundaries 1994