Gregg B. Walker, Ph.D.
Dept. of Speech Communication
Oregon State University

College of Liberal Arts Faculty Lecture Series
Oregon State University
03 February 2000

Current Environmental Conflicts?

• Steens Mountains
• National Forests - Roadless Areas Directive
• National Monuments via Executive Order
• Restoring Columbia/Snake River salmon
• Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs) on public lands
• Recreation use fees on federal lands
• Corvallis riverfront

• How are these conflicts addressed?
• How are decisions made?
• How are citizens involved?
• Are these matters of government or governance?

Because these Conflicts are Complex
Sources of Complexity

• Multiple Parties
• Many Issues
• Cultural Differences
• Deeply Held Values
• Expert Knowledge (Tech. & Tradition.)
• Legal Requirements
• Multiple Venues
• Entrenched Conflict Industry

Tensions about
                        Physical             Biological
Economic      Political
                          Social               Cultural

Two Types of Complexity

• Detail Complexity (emphasis: variables, elements, painstaking inventories)
• Dynamic Complexity (emphasis: interrelationships, connections, unintended consequences)

Environmental Conflict Complexity
Is Dynamic Complexity... in which an action has:

• different short and long term effects
• non-obvious consequences
• varied impacts at different places in the system

• What approaches have  we used  to address natural resource and environmental policy conflicts?
• What have been the implications of these approaches?

• Decision making is not shared
• No negotiation
• Emphasis on maintaining power, authority, and control

• Specialists prepare detailed environmental documents (detail complexity?)
• Opportunities for public comment are provided,  such as hearings, open houses, and letters.
• How public input is used is not clear.
• The agency is in the role of arbitrator.

                                  Agency
                       (decision authority)

IG1         IG2        IG3           IG4          IG5         IG6
(IG=Interest Group)

Agency as Arbitrator

• IGs lobby for their own positions and advocate extreme stances
• Mutual learning is not likely
• Decisions appear as  unwarranted compromises - “No one is happy so the decision must be good”
• Potential chilling effect on citizen participation
• Risks the 3 “I” model

• Inform
• Invite
• Ignore

• “Command and control” communication
• Communication to inform and educate
• Formal venues and mechanisms for communication (e.g., public hearings, comment letters)
• No dialogue
• Any learning?

• Dam-removal supporters plan to crowd hearings
• Public meetings on Columbia salmon-recovery plans begin, and those against breaching expect to be outnumbered
• Thursday, February 3, 2000 . . . By Jonathan Brinckman of The Oregonian staff

The story reports that today’s hearings:
will kick off a series of 13 public meetings throughout the Northwest and Alaska to gather comment on the federal government's Columbia River Basin salmon-recovery plans.
Conservationists have begun a massive push to get supporters of dam breaching to attend the public meetings . . . Sign-up for public comment begins at noon, with overview presentations at 1 p.m., questions and answers from 1:30 to 3 p.m. and public comments at 3 p.m. The agenda will be repeated in the evening.

A Second Approach … Trust Science
Seek a “Science” Solution

• Assign the task to technical specialists
• Hope that their science will convince the public and eliminate the conflict.
• While this approach has merit, it assumes a science consensus.  It also seeks technical solutions to questions of differing values.  This is a policy paradox . . .

• Science is interpretive.  Scientists make different judgments about what data mean.
• Stakeholders (including agencies) may hold different scientific views, and support different scientists.
• Are venues adequate for scientific debate?
• Can citizens and scientists interact constructively?

Economic      Political

A Fundamental Paradox

• A tension between two different values in policy decision-making:
• The need for technical competence--”the best available science”--in complex issues (politics of expertise).
• The need for involved citzens and open public discourse (politics of inclusion).

Integrating technical expertise and  citizens’ traditional knowledge

• While there may be several ways,  collaborative, social learning approaches may be the most direct.
• Social learning involves knowledgeable citizens and technical experts working through the complexity of the situation to craft a public judgment about how to proceed.

One common learning notion...

• “If the public only knew as much about the science as we do, they would agree with our plan to...”
• Learning-based public participation approaches  and social learning reject this notion.
• It is not only about science.
• It is not only the public who needs to learn.

• Stakeholders (e.g., interest groups) learn from one another.
• Agencies interact as stakeholders.
• Both technical/scientific and traditional knowledge are respected.
• Public participation activities are accessible and inclusive and . . .

• Less competitive than traditional decision making and public involvement
• Emphasizes mutual learning
• Fosters systems thinking
• Values diversity of parties and viewpoints
• Encourages innovation
• Promotes dialogue and mutual gain negotiation
• Builds individual and social capacity

                                       Agency
                            (decision authority)
IG1IG6
             IG2             IG3              IG4           IG5

Collaboration . . . Collaboration defined:

• An emergent process
• Interdependent stakeholders
• Differences addressed constructively
• Joint ownership of decisions
• Stakeholders assume shared responsibility for outcomes
• Conclusion: Collaboration responds well to dynamic complexity

• Accept new players
• Promote joint learning
• Explore value differences
• Address intangibles
• Key on mutual gains
• Share implementation
• Are accessible and inclusive on-going processes

• Slow
• Expensive
• Time consuming
• Requires a minimum level of goodwill
• Must operate in the face of competitive options
• Raises expectations

• It must be a viable alternative for stakeholders; strategic behaviors will persist.
• It demands commitment - up and down as well as across.
• It requires meaningful decision space.
• It occurs in a historical context; building trust and overcoming skepticism takes time.

Collaboration?
“It’s another tool…It works in some places but doesn’t work in others.  I’ve had mixed results [with collaboration].  I am more hopeful now than I was five years ago.  They’re not alliances…they’re dialogues.  And I have seen some beneficial stuff…"
        -- Bruce Farling, Montana Trout, quoted in High Country News, 13 May 1996

Some Methods for Collaboration

• Transactive Planning (Friedmann)
• Search Conferencing (Deimer & Alvarez)
• Communities of Interest (Sirmon et al.)
• Constructive Confrontation (Burgess & Burgess)
• Collaborative Learning (Daniels & Walker)

• Multi-stage process
• Dialogue: constructive, open communication
• Focus on future
• Learning emphasis
• Power sharing

• Understanding the situation as a system.
• From dialogue to deliberation to decisions.
• Actions as improvements - Improving the situation rather than solving the problem.
• Improvements as desirable and feasible change … Good ideas that can be implemented.
•  -- Desirable: What we want
•  -- Feasible: What we can do

• Dialogue & deliberation - inquiry & advocacy
• Mutual learning - open exchange of views
• Willingness to test and risk one’s ideas
• Constructive skepticism
• Seeking the unpredictable
• Quantitative & qualitative
• Seeking connections: loops & relationships
• Awareness of external & internal pressures

• Inevitable
• Potentially beneficial, if appropriate management strategies are used.
• Well-managed conflicts can lead to better decisions, improve social cohesion, stimulate innovation, and increase morale.  (Dean Tjosvold, The Conflict-Positive Organization, 1990).

• Manageable
• Situations can be improved.
• Mutual learning can occur.
• Capacity and can be increased.
• Specific Disputes can be settled.
• Collaborative approaches may be key.

Some final thoughts . . .

• Managing environmental and natural resource conflicts well requires trust and constructive communication between resource managers, scientists, and citizens.
• Collaborative public participation processes, when used appropriately, foster trust and good communication.
• Resource managers and organization leaders should view conflict management (CM) as a core responsibility.
• CM does not seek attempt to convince the public that “we are right and they should just let us decide.”
• CM is not an “add on” or a task to be contracted out.
• CM is a part of good decision making and governance.
• Organizations can play a variety of roles in collaborative processes.
• Agencies, governments, and NGOs may have unique opportunities to initiate, convene, and/or facilitate collaborative processes.
• Collaboration relies on collaborative leadership and “walking the talk.”
• Collaborative approaches need to be applied thoughtfully.