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Figure 1. Water Survey: Relationship between Beliefs and Challenges <br />But it is just as western to collaborate as it is <br />to fight. Collaboration has brought the West its <br />greatest achievements and still holds the greatest <br />promise for its future. History of collaboration <br />is rich, ranging from the West - Hispano com- <br />munities of northern New Mexico to the Union <br />Colony in Greeley, which claims distinction as <br />the first successful communal farming endeavor <br />in Colorado. Westerners have also fashioned an <br />astonishing array of compacts, agreements and <br />negotiations. The Colorado River Compact —as <br />the forebearer and perhaps most well -known of <br />these arrangements —is just one of many such <br />examples (Tyler, 2003). <br />But the water community still does not embrace <br />dialogue and cooperation among all interests as <br />the first and fundamental step toward address- <br />ing challenges. We have begun to talk about the <br />potential for such approaches, but have yet to <br />implement them in an effective manner. <br />The potential for cooperation within the water <br />community is not the end all. It really is only the <br />beginning of a process. In the first issue of the <br />Colorado Water Congress newsletter, Colorado <br />Water Rights, published in 1982, Wayne Aspinal <br />wrote: <br />"...there never has been, there is not <br />today, and there never will be a status quo <br />in the administration of water rights under <br />the doctrine of appropriation. The old ad- <br />age to the effect that we live in an ever - <br />changing world certainly applies to the <br />administration of the distribution of water <br />in Colorado." <br />We are constantly adapting to new approaches, <br />working with new coalitions, and finding com- <br />mon ground via solutions we had not considered <br />previously. The CIPP paper touches on the po- <br />_._.W_�_. 7 <br />