Getting Messy: Managing Northwest Environmental Conflicts and Collaboration

Through much of the 20th century, natural resource and environmental policy decision-making was performed often by centralized bodies and government experts. Dams were constructed without consultation with sovereign Tribal Nations and interstate highways were built through neighborhoods with limited community input. Today, Washington state is a national leader in collaborative environmental governance with university programs, independent government agencies, NGOs, and contractors supporting this work.   

I will discuss the role of professional independent facilitators, mediators, and community engagement practitioners in helping governments, Tribes, scientists, stakeholders, and diverse publics work through conflict and find implementable solutions to shared natural resource challenges. I will introduce a theoretical approach to developing collaborative solutions, and provide examples of how collaboration, which is messy in practice, has played out during specific projects that my team from Triangle Associates has supported.