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41 . Utilize detailed MOD's (collaboratively written) to ensure tile commibnent of upper-level management. . Use a self-selection process to ensure tilat you get persons tlIat are committed. This may also belp to avoid some aspects of F ACA. Develop specific criteria for selection. Coordinating Public Involvement From A Basin-Wide Perspective Issnes In river management we all deal witil boundaries, both artificial and real: W & S rivers, BLM, USFS, USF&W, and NPS boundaries, Wilderness areas, private lands, multiple use lands, grazing allobnents, bydroelectric dams, Corps of Engineers, power companies, agricultural lands, water rigbts, State Fisll & Game, and NMFS, just to name a few. These different boundaries are as mucb related to differences in pbilosopby. and mandate as tlIey are to geographic differences. Wbile we see and understand tile boundaries between our areas of responsibility very clearly, tile 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, jnst as we are beginning to coordinate our management efforts in strategies such as tlIe Colorado Ecosystem Parttlership. One problem area in basin-wide coordination is communication. How do we expect to be able to communicate effectively witil the public wben we still bave difficulties communicating between agencies? Beyond our differences in mandates we have different and sometimes incompatible data collection and storage technologies, our researcb efforts are fragmented and sometimes redundant, and we don't coordinate our monitoring efforts. Efforts to improve commnnication bave been started but many barriers still exist. An obvious problem witil coordination of public involvement is tile availability of resources. Will quality coordination between agencies on public involvement efforts take too mucb extra time and money? Also, just as we are overloaded so to are our interested publics. We flood tilem witll information from our different agencies and overwork tlIem witil tlIe level of commibnent required to stay involved in tile lengtily processes we use. Given tilese problems and our differences, bow do we begin to develop a sbared vision of the river resource from tile perspectives of our different agencies as well as the people tI1at really own tile resource: tile American public? Our principle goal sbould be to develop a shared vision tilat leads to managing a river as a single, dynamic resource wbicb fulfills many different needs. Ideas I Solutions The following are a few simple ideas wbicb we could begin to implement almost immediately and on wbicb we can begin to build a 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 tilat our different mandates are complementary parts of tile wbole, rather tilan a good excuse for not working togetiler. For example, tile USFS and state Fisll and Game agencies have differing but complementary mandates for managing overlapping territuries; I.e. one manages tlIe animals and tile otiler is responsible for babitat on wbicb tilose animals depend. Our differences in responsibilities and skills are really our strengtil and we sbould exploit tilem. We sllould begin sharing data collection and storage on simple, key elements. The point is to start small, and just pick a few truly key elements, sucb as user numbers or satisfaction. From tlIere we can begin to build a more comprebensive, shared data base. We sbould be holding annual public involvement coordination meetings between agencies. We are doing more and more interagency meetings to coordinate management activities. Wby not begin meeting annually for the specific purpose of sbaring wbat public involvement activities we are planning and looking for opportunities to Rivers Without Boundaries 1994