Ideas

The woman by the river came because the flyer said “your voice matters.” She has lived by this river for 40 years. She grew up here, fishing with her father, and later raising her own family on the same land. She can tell you which banks flood first, where the current runs strongest in spring, and how the water has changed over time. She understands this river.

When the meeting begins, the organizers start talking about water quality models and nonpoint source pollution. The slides are packed with graphs. After 20 minutes, the woman by the river realizes no one will ask about what she has seen. The language doesn’t connect to the river she knows. She stays quiet. After an hour, she leaves and does not return. The organizers likely believe the meeting went well. They shared the notice and opened the doors to everyone. There were even some new faces, like the woman by the river.

Moments like this are not unusual in natural resource management (NRM) decisionmaking spaces. For decades, policies such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have required public participation for environmental reviews, project approvals, and major federal decisions that affect land and water. Public notices are posted, comment periods open, and meetings are scheduled so community members can weigh in on decisions that affect the lands and waterways they know and rely on. On paper, the systems for participation exist.

Yet, when we were asked by a funder to better understand inclusive decisionmaking in NRM, we found that having participation requirements didn’t always translate into meaningful participation or impact. To learn more, our team spoke with community leaders who had been invited into these spaces.

What they described was rarely about whether they received the invitations. In many cases, notices were widely shared and meetings were technically open to anyone. Instead, the disconnect usually happened once someone entered the room.

Technical language is often the first hurdle. The woman by the river knows when the smell coming off the water changes after a heavy rain. She knows which fields drain into the river and when, and probably who they belong to. She knows where the algae shows up every summer now and where it used to, the locations are not the same. That knowledge is real. It’s simply not the same language used in the reports and presentations. Natural resource management is technical work and expertise matters. Still, heavy use of technical terms (often jargon) can unintentionally push out people who know a place through lived experience and land stewardship, rather than academic training.

Even when someone makes it past the technical language barrier, another question often appears.

Where is this decision in the process exactly? Natural resource decisions move through long timelines with multiple stages, with a typical decision process taking about 2.2 years from start to finish. Advisory groups meet, agencies review options, and policies move through several checkpoints before anything becomes final. For someone entering the room for the first time, it’s not always clear whether the conversation is shaping ideas or simply presenting a direction that has already been decided. Without that context, people may hesitate to speak because they have no sense of what they are there to do. The woman by the river sat through the meeting with no indication of where things stood in the decision process. Were they just starting and truly looking for input from locals like her? Was this a check-in on something already in motion? No one thought to give the people invited into the space the lay of the land.

In that kind of uncertainty, community leaders we spoke to said the same thing: relationships become anchors.

Community engagement is often seen as an action that begins when a decision needs support or input. Yet, the community leaders we spoke to described something different. Meaningful engagement starts with relationships. They spoke about the importance of being present in a community before anything is on the table. Listening. Spending time with the people who live with the consequences of these decisions every day.
Relationships require trust and that grows slowly through consistency and presence. Communities notice when agencies or institutions only show up because federal law requires public participation and disappears once the process ends. They also notice when someone takes the time to understand who already holds knowledge and trust in the place they are making decisions about.

This is why inviting more people doesn’t necessarily change who gets heard or who stays engaged.

Meaningful participation is shaped less by who receives the invite, who sees the flyer, or how widely the information is shared, and more by what happens after someone walks through the door. People stay when they can follow the conversation, understand where their voice fits, and trust that the relationship will exist beyond a single meeting.

The woman by the river did her part. She showed up ready to share what she knew, but the space was not set up for that kind of exchange. As public funding for environmental work continues to shift, those shaping natural resources and environmental justice efforts have a growing opportunity to define what meaningful participation looks like in practice.

So, what would it take for the woman by the river to walk in and find that “your voice matters” was sincere?

• It starts before the meeting, before the agenda is set and the slides are built. The organizations doing this well aren’t showing up when a decision needs defending. They’re showing up to learn and get to know the community. They are asking beforehand: Who lives here? Who farms this land? Who has been fishing this river since before anyone was modeling its water quality?
• Showing up to a community takes the same preparation as walking into any technical space. You do your homework. You learn how people talk about the place they live before you ask them to weigh in on a plan for it. You respect and acknowledge their experience. You help them understand where they are in a larger process, what the steps mean, and how their knowledge fits into a decision that will shape their lives for years. When that groundwork exists, something different becomes possible. People don’t just attend, they contribute. The relationship builds from there, on its own terms, over time.

At Community Science, we believe a successful meeting is one where community members like the woman by the river stay and come back. The flyer may have gotten her there, but the room has to do the rest to make her want to stay, participate, and return for the next conversation. We have spent more than 20 years learning about what communities truly need and building processes worthy of their trust. That commitment doesn’t come from a contract. It comes from believing this work matters. If you believe that too, we would love to connect.

Disclaimer: The woman by the river is a composite figure, based on the experiences and voices of community members we engaged in our research on inclusive decisionmaking in natural resource management.

References: Council on Environmental Quality, Executive Office of the President. “Environmental Impact Statement Timelines (2010–2024).” 13 Jan. 2025, ceq.doe.gov/docs/nepa-practice/CEQ_EIS_Timeline_Report_2025-1-13.pdf.