The Office of Community Services and the San Juan National Forest/San Juan Public Lands Center have partnered to provide opportunities for citizens, agencies, college professors, industries reliant on public lands, non-profit organizations, and local governments to engage each other in the practice of "community-public land stewardship."

OCS projects emphasize stewardship in which participants explore opportunities for collaborative stewardship partnerships and research ways to improve understanding and methods for stewardship. We network nationwide with other community-based organizations, public agency leaders, and university researchers and assistance providers to build stronger and more effective means of community-ecosystem stewardship.

Through the Community-Public Land Partnership Program (CPLP), the Office of Community Services helps partners and clients work to strengthen the practice of stewardship and to more clearly understand what stewardship can be for our region. The Community-Public Land Partnership fosters cooperation, learning, and open communication that will improve ecological stewardship and strengthen communities. It is a network for continuing cooperation that has emerged out of the interaction between the Forest Service, BLM, OCS and others dedicated to building more collaborative relationships. Practitioners act out of a conviction that the future well-being and improvement of communities and public lands depend upon their contributions of expertise, equipment, services, and other resources in on-the-ground projects.

Community-Public Land Stewardship is defined by six major principles: Leadership, Common Values, Relationship Building, Knowledge Sharing, Constructive Action, and Adaptive Management. Participants in cooperative stewardship efforts contribute all of these. For public land managers bring scientific information, a willingness to share power, responsibility and to appropriately integrate desired community desires with ecological goals, and to refine the integrity and effectiveness of future cooperative actions.