The federal government owns so much of Custer County, Idaho, that one could call it common ground. More than 95 percent lies in public hands. But for years, Idaho has failed to find much, if any, common ground on what to do with the region's pristine backwoods.

Environmentalists wanted to protect the roadless forestland as federal wilderness, ranchers hoped to maintain the land for their cattle, and weekend warriors pushed for access for their dirt bikes and off-road vehicles. Local government officials, starved for revenue, looked to privatize some government land to generate more property taxes.

Exhausted after three decades of lawsuits, failed legislation, and ill will, these groups are backing a compromise bill that would designate some 300,000 acres as wilderness, privatize another 6,000, and keep the rest open for multiple uses. Some observers call the legislation, submitted last year by US Rep. Mike Simpson (R) of Idaho, an example of "collaborative process," an evolving concept that could define the future of conservation.

"The environmental movement has gotten very good at fighting and we've lost touch with a lot of people," says Rick Johnson, executive director of The Idaho Conservation League and a key figure in the Custer County compromise.

"Collaboration, in the big sense, means getting things done instead of simply fighting. People are hungry for that."

While definitions of the process vary, the basic idea has existed for decades. Most often it's used to describe a coming together of stakeholders intimately connected to a particular problem. The use of such cooperative approaches has surged in recent years. Now, the movement seems to be presenting itself as a viable alternative to mainstream environmentalism.

The trend is particularly evident here in the West, where public landholdings are vast and debate has sharpened over what to do with them. For example:

• In southern Oregon, a group of environmentalists, government agents, logging representatives, and concerned citizens came to an amicable agreement this past fall regarding a long-disputed timber sale. According to the agreement, loggers will bypass the forest's largest and oldest trees while a local committee will help to mediate any future conflicts.

• Last year in south-central Utah, a collaborative collection of state agencies, university professors, residents, and ranchers got a $350,000 federal grant to aid their effort to boost sage grouse populations. In return for help in keeping the sage grouse off the endangered species list, conservationists got help restoring the bird's habitat.

• After witnessing what happened to timber towns when the spotted owl made the endangered species list, farmers in Washington state joined environmentalists in a similar effort to protect sage grouse.

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