More than 25 years ago, Jeff Goebel started working with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation to help improve finances from their timber management program. Over time, using his consensus-building approach, Jeff’s work touched on visioning and planning, resource management, budgeting, project management, and, perhaps most tellingly, managing student interns. It was student interns who created the first 2-page, draft, vision of the future. As they explain, “this is our home.”
In this follow-up conversation, Jeff discusses how this vision came to be, describes the work, and shares lessons he learned with Designers of Paradise host Erik van Lennep. Jeff helps draw many lessons from this experience. He talks about how planners must follow the people. He shows how reframing the focus of an effort can improve results, for example by changing the focus from “poaching” to “wildlife management”. He describes how indigenous knowledge can extend upon what “science” offers and the related value of language as a catalogue of knowledge. He offers inspiring vignettes that demonstrate how holistic thinking — not assuming trade-offs — can lead to outcomes that are simultaneously cheaper, better, and faster. In this case, how forest management changes reduced cost, improved sales, and increased trust in the community.
Jeff’s lovely storytelling is a delightful sequel to his earlier conversation with Erik, All of Our Voices.
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