Introduction

NGOs are complex organisms with special qualities: hey are neither of government nor are they individuals with individuals rights. They owe their power in the environmental conservation realm to the string of environmental laws staring with the Wilderness Act, then NEPA, ESA, etc.

The term NGO is meant to be inclusive, including traditional activist organizations like the Sierra Club and the many fish and wildlife and hunting/sport organizations, and new collectives formed around resource management, production, or conservation. This chapter is especially about conservation NGOs, a slightly modified version of "environmental NGOs. Indeed, the author suggest that public impatience with environmental NGO intransigence has led to more "middle ground" thinking and openness to collaboration, say between an enviro group and a hunting organization, and between the NGOs and the agencies.

Cutler says we are coming into a time when NGOs have left behind their rabble-rousing, activist style, and have matured into technically and politically-astute organizations that apply staff expertise and member political power to seeking better solutions, not just their pie in the sky goals.

The agencies are starting to invite NGOs to become partners in resources planning and management. In many ways this may be because the "public" is to vague a constituency, or because the professionalized NGOs are less recalcitrant than the single-issue advocacy groups.

Cutler discusses especially NGOs that participate in negotiations and collaborations with agencies and other groups (noting that some refuse, and stay with the lobbying and litigation). We’re interested in the former because they are playing a bigger and bigger role in ecosystems management, as will see later in class.

The range is quite large. See Table on pp. 196-198.

Range from research and educational to lobbying and litigation, to actual land management (Audubon and TNC). See list: p. 199.

Read the wide range assessment on pp,. 200-202.

I’ll focus on the regional organizations like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and we’ll discuss what these "bioreigonal" NGOs can accomplish.