Working Together to Resolve Conflict
Melanie Woolever USDA Forest Service September 27, 2007
Approach Drives: ♦ Outcomes – Timeliness of solution development – Implementation effectiveness ♦ Defensibility – Political scrutiny – Legal scrutiny ♦ Longevity
COLLABORATION A group of individuals, working together, focusing on an issue of mutual concern, making a series of agreements, and willing to manage their own disappointment… … in order to achieve closure.
Willingness to collaborate ♦ TIRED …ready to try a different approach ♦ THREATENED…risk of loss ♦ TOGETHER … realization of the inability
to achieve resolution alone
The participants are key! ♦ Local participants with
a stake in the outcome ♦ Those you are most afraid of must be at the table ♦ Actively seek participation from the reticent
Potential Participants ♦ Livestock operator ♦ State wildlife
management agency ♦ Wild sheep advocacy group ♦ Federal agencies
Setting the stage ♦ There will need to be some ground rules or
framing of the process ♦ Participants must understand the ground rules from the outset ♦ No surprises
Consent not Consensus ♦ True consensus is time consuming and rarely
achieved. ♦ Consensus can result in one participant stalling the process indefinitely. ♦ Consent allows for movement and adjustment. ♦ Consent requires participants to manage their own disappointment.
Informed Consent Consent: Grudging willingness of participants to go along with a course of action that isn’t their immediate preference. Informed: Participants understand consequences and are still willing to go along. “I can live with the proposed course of action and won’t sue you.”
Collaboration premises … ♦ Consent-based group solutions ♦ Both uses are valid land with historic,
cultural and economic values ♦ Group recommendations will inform/influence decision-makers ♦ Fair, Open and Honest ethical standard
FAIR ♦
Same Opportunity ♦ Same Information ♦ Same Time ♦ Consider using a neutral facilitator “Credibility is gained by the thimblefull and lost by the bucketfull.” Bruce Ambs
OPEN ♦ Are all really listening and participating? ♦ Are roles clearly defined? ♦ Active exchange of viewpoints while
respecting the needs, concerns and values of others? ♦ Process is transparent “Listening gives dignity to the person being listened to.” Justice Stephen Breyer
HONEST ♦ All information on the table ♦ NO hidden Agendas ♦ Timeframe reasonable “It’s the intuitive nature of the soul to recognize truth.” Joseph Cornell, Sharing Nature With Children
Solution not Position ♦ Everyone brings a position. ♦ Collaboration means you’re willing to be flexible. ♦ “Position defending” not allowed. ♦ Proposals the group might accept are encouraged,
but …endless “concerns” are not. ♦ Concerns raised to be accompanied by alternate ideas
Consent that MUST be achieved before collaboration can occur ♦ Contact between wild and domestic sheep
increases the risk of subsequent wild sheep mortality and reduced recruitment, primarily due to respiratory disease
Help to achieve consent ♦ Pertinent literature ♦ Payette science panel 8 points of agreement ♦ WAFWA guidelines endorsed by the
western states and provinces ♦ Involve experts ♦ This time is well spent!!
Bottom line ♦ It is prudent to prevent contact between the two
species if the management goal is to maintain the bighorn sheep population
Information Needs ♦ Pertinent literature ♦ Specifics of the livestock operation,
economic considerations, user preferences ♦ Maps of historic and occupied wild sheep range, herd size, composition, home range, migratory behavior, lambing sites ♦ Allotment boundaries, trailing areas, numbers and season of use, topography, potential management options
Specifics enable the process
Potential solutions ♦ Conversion to cattle ♦ Timing and duration of use ♦ Rotation changes ♦ Trucking instead of trailing ♦ Improved herding and/or stray gathering ♦ Alternative allotments ♦ Habitat improvement: salt, water, burning ♦ Dogs
Give enough people what they want and you get what you want
Anything worthwhile takes incubation!
Give enough people what they want and you get what you want.