In the Public Interest: Environmental Conflict Resolution

As I have mentioned previously on this page, conflict resolution processes and techniques can be applied to settle virtually any kind of dispute, public or private. Therefore, the proliferation in governmental mediation programs may reflect the increasing preference, by public entities and private citizens alike, for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) instead of litigation to resolve disputes affecting large groups of people or involving public issues.

A recent e-mail from Dr. John Stephens, Coordinator of the Public Dispute Resolution Program at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led me to an interesting public sector conflict resolution site involving the environment.

The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (Institute), created by the 1998 Environmental Policy and Conflict Resolution Act, provides mediation of disputes related to the environment, natural resources, and public lands in which there is federal agency participation.

The Institute is located in Tucson, AZ, and operates under the supervision of the Morris K. Udall Foundation, an executive branch agency created by Congress in 1992. Morris Udall was a long-serving U.S. Representative from Arizona whose political career was made noteworthy, at least in part, by his concern for the environment.

Although a dispute must involve a federal agency or a federal interest in order to be included in the caseload of the Institute's Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR) program, a private citizen can initiate contact with the Institute. Once a dispute is accepted into the ECR program, the staff of the Institute decides whether to conduct the mediation themselves or refer the dispute to an outside practitioner. Disputes that are of particular national or scientific interest are the most likely to be handled in-house by the Institute staff.

The web site for the Institute can be found at http://ww.ecr.gov/. The site is searchable and provides information about the ECR program, the Morris K. Udall Foundation, mediation training, as well as links to other conflict resolution sites.

My hearty thanks to Dr. Stephens for the information and feedback. For those of you who are residents of North Carolina or are simply interested in the subject of public dispute resolution, check out Dr. Stephens' very informative web site at http://ncinfo.iog.unc.edu/dispute/.

I look forward to hearing from more of you. I am always searching for Conflict Resolution sites that can be shared with the readers of this web page, and your input is definitely welcome.

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