It often surprises me how deeply ingrained the myth of objective science is, especially in the field of natural resource management. As an ecologist working in the marine realm, I found that predicting anything with greater than 30% certainty was doing pretty good - about all we could distinguish in most cases was whether something was non-random. It is frustrating work, and somehow people who don't have to do it assume scientists can tell exactly what is going to happen in the ecosystems they study, in all cases and with extreme accuracy. There are attempts at mathematical modeling, but the math gets so complex that it has to be re-interpreted in terms understandable to managers anyhow. These models look more objective because they contain numbers, but there is subjective interpretation at both ends - as the ecosystem is interpreted into digital form, and again as the digital model is translated into terms meaningful to managers. By double-translating everything, the real world is filtered twice and we are even further from the truth than we realize, yet we have this mythical belief in the accuracy of what we have predicted because it was digitized at one point in the process.

What is so silly is that we are all born with very powerful intuitive skills that are far more useful for natural resource planning and management than we give them credit for. These intuitive skills are what we use every day to interact with the world around us. Each of us is born with the capacity to sense our surroundings, interpret what we sense, and imagine what the future will bring. It's one of the features which enabled our species to become so prolific. Our intuitive abilities not only allow us to envision a range of future scenarios, but we intuitively assign levels of certainty to them so we have a feel for how much we can rely on them. In contrast, the double-translation digitization process of "objective" science makes it inevitable that we loose much of our ability to tell how reliable our predictions are. The subjective filtration (determining which information is important and which is not) takes place twice, often by two different people.

The innate intuitive processes that helped us survive from ape-hood into human-hood are the same ones we need to help us manage natural resources today. They are the same environment-sensing intuitive skills that lead to success in any field, even business. Almost none of our daily decisions are made on the basis of mathematical conceptions of the world around us but rather on our intuitive abilities to sense what is happening around us, to sense the trends, the opportunities, the dangers, to sense what will work and what won't. We can use mathematics to help us understand the world we are part of, to the extent it is useful to us. But if the only information we are allowed to use in our management decisions is that very limited range of information which is numerically measurable (and therefore considered "objective"), then we are throwing away the most useful tool we have - our intuition. The whole reason we have professional biologists and professional business folks is because by living their subject they become attuned to the processes which enable them to make sound intuitive judgements within their respective fields. Numerically measurable information becomes virtually meaningless outside the context of this intuitive ability to interpret it.

Well, this brings up the question - if professional judgement is the best tool to rely on in natural resource management, why do we search for so-called objectivity? The answer is that all the parties involved in resource management decisions have lost trust in each other. When there is a lack of trust, nobody gives anyone the benefit of the doubt and all "professional judgement" (i.e., intuition applied to a particular field of expertise) is attacked. The irony is that instead of searching for ways of rebuilding trust, we perpetuate the search for so-called objective information. Not surprisingly, the amount of information that anyone will agree is objective is a very small percentage of the information that must go into a decision. Decisions are therefore deadlocked, or assigned to more study. All parties are then frustrated and continued effort is expended pursuing senseless objectives.

What is needed is discussion between the parties affected by decisions, aimed at discovering a workable solution to the problems at hand. The system we have for getting people's input -testimony at public hearings or in court - serves only to allow the various parties to shirk their responsibility for working towards a commonly acceptable solution. Each is expected to consider and present only their own myopic perspective, and then an administrator or judge is supposed to determine who will win and who will lose. The obsession with "objectivity" is really a signal of mistrust between parties. After all, why have we called on professional expertise if not to receive the benefit of their professional judgement, their intuitive interpretation of the objectively measurable facts? The real issue is not objectivity - the real issue is trust.

If resource management is going to move forward on the issues we face, we have to create institutions that build trust by facilitating civic discourse. We have to create institutions which make the various parties affected by a decision responsible for finding the solutions they can live with. We can no longer rely on institutions which encourage conflict, in which the only roles that can be played are adversarial roles. We all share this place we call home, and we all want our kids to inherit a world worth living in. We can no longer let the institutions through which we interact keep us from finding the common ground we need to build a common vision of the future. We cannot create a common future without trust, and we cannot create trust without institutions that help build trust.

We in resource management should ask ourselves each time we approach a decision "How can we use this issue as a chance to build trust between different parties." Every decision can be seen as a way of introducing the parties involved to a new role, a new way of interacting with each other. It will take time, and practice. People who are used to the role they have played for so long will find it difficult to assume a new role. It is easier to attack and to advocate one's own perspective than to truly step into someone else's shoes to understand their perspective. But people can do this and they need to know it will be expected of them. There are enough examples around to know that it can be done. We just need to create the opportunity and the expectation.

In trying to get different parties talking with one another, it will be important to view each decision approached in this way as an experiment. If we fail, we are no worse off than we were before, and we may have learned some valuable lessons to help us be more successful next time. But if we succeed, then we have truly accomplished something, for in building trust we pave the way for more productive relationships on future issues. As employees of the Forest Service, we are in the unique position of being able to intitiate this kind of communication if we choose. It's up to us to get it started.