WASHINGTON — Promoters of Enlibra, the philosophy to seek middle-ground solutions through collaboration, say it could solve most environmental fights, but maybe not the extra-thorny war over how much Utah wilderness to protect.
Why? Wilderness combatants are not ready to sit and talk because they aren't yet tired of playing "power politics."
That's according to officials who are essentially the high priests of Enlibra. They spoke Monday at the national conference of the American Planning Association, where they urged urban planners to use Enlibra more to help resolve conflicts.
Enlibra is a word, and philosophy, coined by former Utah GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber. It means "toward balance" and tries to move people from the political extremes to find an acceptable middle ground through collaboration of all stakeholders in a problem.
When some in the audience Monday asked if Enlibra can work with even the hottest controversies, officials acknowledged it may not — at least not until both sides tire of political warfare.
"There is a time when a dispute is ripe for consensus, for an alternative approach, (when) people are sick of litigation, they're sick of something being dragged out, they're sick of the costs, they're tired of fighting each other," said Utah Rep. Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, a principal in the Bear West regional planning firm.
"It's a matter of being primed for that moment. We're certainly not there with wilderness today, at least not in our state," Becker said. "But the time will be there, and we better be ready for it."
Brad Barber, senior fellow with the Oquirrh Institute, created by Leavitt to promote Enlibra, added that people often will not seek Enlibra if they think they can still win through traditional power politics.
"But when both sides finally decide that power politics is not working for their point of view, then maybe it is ripe to come together and do something different," he said.
Officials said environmental combatants in the West are turning to Enlibra more often. They cited examples of success ranging from agreeing how to upgrade a highway through sensitive tribal lands in Montana to preparing quickly and approving without any final dissent a master plan for development at Utah's Brighton ski resort.
"We think of the West with an OK Corral image of shootouts and fighting, and we've had plenty of that. But what we're seeing increasingly in our part of the country, almost as a response to that, is a strong undercurrent of consensus building," Becker said.
"There's always that moment in time when conditions are ripe for collaboration. One of the tricks is to constantly monitor those disputes to be there at that moment," said Greg Wolf, director of the National Policy Consensus Center in Portland, Ore.
To help planners use the philosophy more, the Oquirrh Institute made available to them "Enlibra Tool Kits" containing case studies, suggestions and resources.
Among tenets of Enlibra are: collaboration, not polarization; change a heart, change a nation; reward results, not programs; science for facts, process for priorities; solutions transcend political boundaries; and national standards, neighborhood solutions.
E-mail: leed@dgsys.com