WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF ENLIBRA?

As Western Governors have struggled with a range of environmental problems, it has become evident that there are common principles underlying the most promising approaches and successful solutions that have developed. These principles for environmental management call for greater participation and collaboration in decision-making, focus on outcomes rather than just programs, and recognize the need for a variety of tools beyond regulation that will improve environmental management.

The culmination of this way of approaching environmental management occurred in December of 1997 at the Western Governors' Association's winter meeting. The discussion was initiated by Utah Governor Mike Leavitt (R) and Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D) based on their separate experiences with the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission and the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watershed Restoration, respectively. The success of those processes led them to articulate and institutionalize a new approach to the environmental management with the development of this shared set of principles. The Western Governors' Association (WGA) policy resolution, Principles of Environmental Management in the West, was first agreed to by Western Governors in February 1998 and updated in 1999.

To broaden the discussion of the principles, the governors convened an Environmental Summit on the West in December 1998. More than 400 people of diverse interests attended the meeting. To review the wealth of comments, the governors created the Enlibra Advisory and Steering Committees, composed of a diverse group of representatives from government, industry, agriculture, academia and environmental groups. The governors adopted the committees' recommendations for refining the doctrine in June 1999.

In April of 2002 WGA sponsored a second Environmental Summit on the West to offer case studies and opportunities for applying Enlibra to real-life situations. This second meeting brought about the need to present Enlibra to the public on a nationwide level. In order to deal with increasingly complex environmental problems, decision makers and stakeholders need to have the tools and education necessary to make better-informed environmental decisions.

The Oquirrh Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to working collaboratively with WGA in advancing the principles of Enlibra, is currently creating the Enlibra Toolkit. The Toolkit will be used to educate planners, environmental agencies, industry decision makers, elected officials, and public interest groups, as well as college and university students on the Enlibra principles of problem solving.