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Clashes over environmental issues often leave government agencies, industry and activists locked in political or legal combat. Increasingly, players from all sides are conceding that there must be some other way of resolving environmental conflicts. Resolving Environmental Disputes examines that proposition by examining how and why conflicts occur and whether approaches to conflict resolution based on consensus building could be more widely applied. It differs from existing books by covering both environmental mediation and public participation and by analysing detailed case studies in Britain, the USA and the Netherlands.
In addition, Resolving Environmental Disputes explores official resistance to the wider use of consensus building arguing that government agencies that have resisted participation and mediation cannot be dismissed as the problem but have to be part of the solution. The concluding chapter suggests general principles for effective partnership working concerning the remits, resources and the time scales within which the agencies operate.
Part I: Conflicts and the Politics Process
- Introduction
- Access to the Countryside for Recreation
- Using Social Theory to Explain Conflict
- Attempts to Build and Political Consensus in the Northern Maine Woods
Part II: Decision-making and Disputes
- Moving to Resolution: Participation in Decision-making and the Role of Consensus
- How Decision-making Affects the Outcome of a Dispute
- Policy-making: Partial and Impartial Interventions by Decision-makers
Part III: Strategies for Cooperation
- Prevention is Better than Cure: Lessons in Participation
- Process Dilemmas in Resource Management
- Conclusions on the Way Forward
Bibliography
Index
Roger Sidaway is an independent researcher and mediator who teaches and leads training courses at the University of Edinburgh.
"Thought provoking, important and instructive, this is a masterly guide to dealing with environmental conflicts"
- Professor Des Thompson, Scottish Natural Heritage
"This is a long awaited book. Many of us in the environmental policy, management and decision-making business have been struggling along to make environmental values and developmental values fit. This book helps us to have a better means for finding the shared values and actions that most environmental issues entail. It has the heft of sound scholarship and the street sense of someone who has actually been there and done that"
- William R. Burch, Jr., Hixon Professor of Natural Resource Management, Faculty Director, Yale Urban Resources Initiative
"One of Roger Sidaway's greatest strengths is that he is fully knowledgeable of both the participatory and consensus-oriented approaches, and he treats them both as part of the same enterprise of finding solutions to community problems through dialogue and mutual problem solving"
- James L. Creighton, Author, The Public Participation Manual, Founding President, international Association for Public Participation
