Collaboration Derailed: The Politics of ‘‘Community-Based’’ Resource Management in Nevada County PETER A. WALKER PATRICK T. HURLEY Department of Geography University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon, USA Collaborative natural resource management (CNRM) is often portrayed as a way to find ‘‘win–win’’ solutions that move ‘‘beyond ’’ bitter adversarial politics. Research on failures of CNRM emphasizes institutional and procedural barriers. In contrast, using a study of a failed CNRM program in Nevada County, California, we emphasize the role of intracommunity politics. We build on work by Few (2001) that examines political ‘‘containment’’ and ‘‘capture’’ of collaborative processes. In Nevada County, we identify another political tactic: the strategic use of ‘‘derail- ment’’ of CNRM by powerful interests to achieve goals outside the collaborative process. Expanding upon Amy (1987), we suggest that this example illustrates that collaboration is not separate from, or ‘‘beyond,’’ politics. CNRM can become an avenue of power that social groups use to achieve broader political ends. This calls into question the general optimism about CNRM and the current emphasis on making it ‘‘work’’ by refining institutions and procedures. Keywords collaboration, community, natural resource management, political ecology, United States They’ll use this as just another tool to identify properties and to take properties ... all of you need to take it real seriously: we’re in a state of war. They mean to win. They don’t believe in compromise ... our goal is to slow these people down on Natural Heritage 2020 or to stop them before [the] November 2002 [elections]. 1 Speaking to the Nevada County, California, Republican Women’s Club in 2001, Drew Bedwell, a candidate for County Supervisor, offered this animated con- demnation of the county’s ‘‘community-based’’ natural resource management planning process, known as Natural Heritage 2020 (NH 2020). In one respect Received 23 June 2003; accepted 22 March 2004. We received support from the National Science Foundation (SBR0001964) and invaluable guidance from Richard Krannich, Carla Koons Trentelman, and three anonymous reviewers. Above all we thank the people of Nevada County. Any errors are solely the authors’. Address correspondence to Peter A. Walker, Department of Geography, 1251 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1251, USA. E-mail: phurley@uoregon.edu 735 Society and Natural Resources, 17:735–751, 2004 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Inc. ISSN: 0894-1920 print/1521-0723 online DOI: 10.1080/08941920490480723