The Sonoran Institute is an organization that believes its job across western states, and even Mexico, is to "connect people...with natural resources", "where people and wildlife live in harmony" and "where clean water, air, and energy are assured". Sonoran staff and board members are from all over the United States and include former National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees. Partners include federal agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and others. In 2012, Sonoran and the BLM launched a project called "Sustaining Large Landscape Conservation Partnerships: Strategies for Success. This was shortly after the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives were illegally created in 2010 by the President at the time via a memorandum. Sonoran and the BLM held workshops "to highlight key principles for developing and sustaining landscape-scale collaborative efforts." Collaboration is a principle for all of these groups, collaboration between themselves that is. Seven principles for collaboration were identified for large landscape conservation partnerships to succeed in the long term. Those include building lasting relationships, agreeing on legal sideboards, encouraging diverse participation, working at an appropriate scale, empowering the group, sharing resources, and building internal support. While Sonoran also claims building at a grassroots level and encouraging diverse perspectives, none of it is true. All of these collaborators are individuals with the same ideology, there is nothing grassroots or community based about them, and diverse opinions are not typically tolerated. Why would these groups, so invested in conserving land for non-use, creating a wildlife zoo for animals over development, ever want to listen to someone who did not want these objectives in their community, let alone the deliberate ignoring of jurisdictional boundaries? The booklet is an interesting read for those who want a picture of their agenda for deciding how your community should look. One resource cited is the Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition (RVCC) which covers northwest states, including Idaho through its participation with Salmon Valley Stewardship in central Idaho and Heart of the Rockies Initiative which has a massive agenda to redesign land located in the High Divide. Collaboration is a big theme for those who wish to determine how rural communities should designed, from how people live, to how the land is used. But collaboration is really how these groups collaborate together, it does not include those who live in their targeted areas. Citizens in those areas should create their own collaborative group and counter every attempt for these groups to make decisions for them. Time is running short to stop these groups.
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