To learn more or get involved in this dialogue, please contact Jim Nielsen at jnielsen@harborside.com.
More recently, the group adopted the name "Seventh Generation Task Group", and decided to focus on education and communication as its special tasks. Discussion at a meeting held in December 1996 centered on the nature of motivation by incentives vs. penalties. A problem with prescribed standards is that it seems to be human nature to do the legal minimum required; one member of the group stated that environmental legislation might be more effective if intent is explicitly stated, followed by details on what that means, rather than only listing the "must do" and "thou shalt nots". Two other observations reported from this meeting were that legislation and litigation lead to lose-lose situations while communication, coordination, and cooperation lead to win-win situations, and that a dilemma of ecosystem management is that "we know how to do things better than the letter of the law prescribes, as well as better than we can afford to do."
Contact: Lynn Starr, Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute, 1401 Gekeler Lane, La Grande, OR 97850, Phone: 541-962-6548.