Local communities play an important role in the development of the state’s Action Agenda for Puget Sound recovery. The Puget Sound Partnership has established a series of Local Integrating Organizations (LIOs) in nine geographic regions to help establish conservation priorities. A 2014 report from the Puget Sound Institute looks at this process as it occurred in the Island County region.
From the Executive Summary:
The Puget Sound Partnership is developing decision support to more effectively integrate the priorities of Local Integrating Organizations (LIOs) into the Puget Sound Partnership Action Agenda (2016 and subsequent revisions). A pilot version of the process was implemented for Island LIO’s selection of near-term actions (NTAs) for the 2014 Action Agenda. Through this process, Island LIO refined a list of 78 general strategy actions for ecosystem recovery to 12 new NTAs that contribute to implementing regional recovery strategies and substrategies. The Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council approved the NTAs at its October 9, 2013 meeting (Resolution 2013-06).
This report presents and discusses lessons learned from the Island effort. One overarching lesson learned is that choosing NTAs well is hard work. While Island LIO participants expressed satisfaction with the final list of NTAs, improved quality of product required participation in a new NTA prioritization process as it was still being developed (while still at the pilot stage), leading to more time and effort spent exploring and developing the process than some members had anticipated. The intent is that the eight lessons learned discussed in this report, along with other local experiences, will together contribute to a more consistent standard of practice across all LIOs for connecting local actions to overall Puget Sound Recovery.
Download the full report:
Anderson, Richard. 2014. Lessons Learned: Island Local Integrating Pilot Process for Selecting Near Term Actions for the 2014 Action Agenda. Puget Sound Institute, Tacoma, WA. 17pp.