Managing Environmental Conflict: An Earth Institute Sustainability Primer

Conflicts over environmental issues arise from diverging interests and values among stakeholders. This book provides a primer on causes and solutions to such conflicts, offering a collaborative approach to managing environmental disputes. It emphasizes ongoing dialogue, analysis, action, and learning to bring stakeholders together for collective solutions. The primer examines why and how system dynamics can constrain or expand the possibility of constructive management of conflicts and features a case study from the Amazon Basin. Managing Environmental Conflict synthesizes knowledge, methods, and practices from consensus building, collaborative governance, complex adaptive systems science, environmental conflict resolution, and environmental peacebuilding.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 15 February 2022
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Environmental conflicts arise from diverse interests and values among stakeholders, leading to disputes over land use, natural resource management, and laws and regulations. This book serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding the causes and resolving such conflicts. It provides a foundational overview of collaborative approaches to managing environmental disputes, emphasizing ongoing processes of dialogue, analysis, action, and learning.

Joshua D. Fisher, the author, delves into the core concepts of collaborative conflict management and presents a clear, practical, and implementable framework for understanding and responding to environmental disputes. He outlines strategies to bring stakeholders together, fostering collective solutions and emphasizing the importance of ongoing dialogue, analysis, action, and learning. This collaborative approach creates new opportunities for stakeholders to better understand each other and the natural world, enabling more effective and context-appropriate environmental governance.

The primer also examines how system dynamics can either constrain or expand the possibility of constructive conflict management. It features a case study from the Amazon Basin, highlighting the challenges and lessons learned from local communities, extractive industry operators, conservationists, and land managers in managing access to natural resources. This case study illustrates how the conflict management framework can be adapted to diverse contexts, fostering sustainable and peaceful resolutions.

Managing Environmental Conflict is a valuable resource for academics and practitioners alike, including decision-makers, scientists, and conflict management professionals. It synthesizes knowledge, methods, and practices from consensus building, collaborative governance, complex adaptive systems science, environmental conflict resolution, and environmental peacebuilding. The book's comprehensive presentation of this important and timely topic will greatly benefit those engaged in addressing environmental conflicts and promoting sustainable development.

Weight: 274g
Dimension: 138 x 216 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231196871