What is Consensus-Building and Why is It Important for Resource Management?

by Gail Bingham

Anyone who reads a newspaper or talks to a neighbor at the street corner knows that resource management decisions are controversial. That fact alone is not the problem. People aren’t naīve. We know conflict is to be expected - individuals and groups have different needs and perspectives to be satisfied. Viewed in that way, conflict actually can be an important force for positive change when handled constructively. The public is frustrated, however, that the impasses seem to go on and on. Those directly involved may feel even worse. The real problem seems to be that our tools for dealing with differences are inadequate.

The general public and those involved in resource management controversies eventually come to the same refrain - there has to be a better way! And in an increasing number of situations, people are finding that consensus-building approaches are better. Reasonable estimates are that in over a thousand natural resource management issues, parties have asked for mediation or facilitation assistance to engage in a consensus-building effort. Not all have been successful, however. We all need to learn more about what these processes are, about when they are the appropriate tool (and when they are not), and about how to use them effectively.

What is a "consensus-building" approach? The term "consensus-building" (sometimes called "alternative dispute resolution" or ADR) actually refers to a variety of approaches. Generically, they are voluntary processes in which the participants seek a mutually acceptable resolution of their differences.

Four common terms are useful to define. Conciliation consists of the attempt by a neutral party, generally with no stake in the dispute, to communicate separately with disputing parties for the purpose of reducing tensions and agreeing on a process for resolving the issues. Negotiation is a process in which parties meet face to face to reach a mutually acceptable resolution of the issues. Mediation involves the assistance of a neutral third party in the negotiation process. However, a mediator, unlike a judge, has no power to direct the parties. Instead, the mediator helps parties reach their own agreement. In an arbitration process, the parties voluntarily submit their case to a neutral for decision, often negotiating a tailored set of rules of procedure which they agree to follow.

Negotiation and mediation have been used with success to resolve many conflicts over natural resources; formal conciliation and arbitration are less common. Negotiation, broadly defined, is common in all aspects of our lives and for all kinds of conflicts. Negotiations are often difficult processes to organize and conduct effectively, however, especially when they involve resource management issues, which are both politically and technically complex. The large number of parties, disagreements about the facts, and other complicating factors often create circumstances in which parties question the appropriateness of negotiation (sometimes rightly), give up, or reach impasse. Mediators have increasingly been called upon to help parties convene negotiations, to prevent impasse during the negotiations, or to assist parties to continue when their discussions have broken down.

In mediated negotiations, the mediator does not make a decision about who is right or wrong or what the best outcome should be. Instead, a mediator helps those involved hold constructive discussions by calling meetings, establishing a framework for the negotiation within which all parties agree to participate, and facilitating communication in and between meetings. Mediators often assist the parties in identifying where they may be able to agree or ways in which they can address their disagreements, for example, through joint fact-finding. They also assist by drafting, facilitating discussion of, and refining agreement language that then is reviewed for implementability by all parties. Professional mediators hold as a matter of ethics the view that mediators should have no direct interest in the outcome of the dispute, i.e. that they should be neutral. Frequently, however, a party with a stake in achieving a solution or with power or resources to assist the parties, who is not a central protagonist, may take on mediation functions.

A key advantage to both mediation and negotiation is that the parties have significant control over the end result. Decision-making power stays in the parties' hands and is not passed on to a judge or arbitrator.

Mediation can take various forms, depending on the decision to be made and the stage of the dispute. Some of these variations have become sufficiently formalized to be given different names. These include negotiated rulemaking, policy dialogues, joint fact-finding, facilitation (generally applied to public meetings or informal workshops), and partnering (generally applied to construction contracts).

In the resources management arena, consensus-building processes have been implemented in numerous situations, including endangered species, watershed management councils, forest plan appeals, mining issues, grazing, estuarine planning, commercial fisheries, and many more. The case studies that follow for this special session are good illustrations.

Elements of Effective Consensus Processes

Most dispute resolution literature urges that specific disputes be managed in such a way as to allow all sides to express their views, preferably directly to one another. (Traditional public hearing or notice and comment procedures used by government agencies do give the public a voice, but do so in ways that actually create incentives for polarization.) Underlying conflicts should not be avoided, because without understanding and accepting their differences people cannot jointly solve problems. This is not to say, however, that all modes of expressing conflicts are constructive. Dispute resolution methods focus on structuring incentives to deal with differences and on improved communication between parties in order to better identify options that satisfy these different interests and values.

To think well about improving effectiveness, it is important to have a picture of one’s target. When people refer to "success," they mean several things. Generally, these factors fall into three categories - substance, process, and relationships. Examples of common measures of success mentioned by parties to disputes include:

substance
reaching agreements,
reaching an agreement that satisfies their interests or solves real problems,
reaching an agreement better than otherwise could have been achieved,
reaching agreements that are implemented,
process
fair,
all affected parties represented,
no undue delay,
allows adequate consultation with constituencies,
not overly costly in time or money,
consistent with applicable procedures and laws (e.g. open meeting laws),
does not set precedent for other parties not at the table, and
encourages the exchange of accurate and complete information.
relations
civil,
provides mutual recognition and respect, and
improved capacity to solve problems together in the future.

Implementation of agreements that solve real problems for those involved is probably the most important measure of success, but factors such as improved relationships among the parties or development of an improved information base or array of options for later consideration can also be valued outcomes of consensus-building, as some (if not complete) progress toward a resolution.

Considerable research has gone into how to increase the likelihood of success in negotiations or consensus-building efforts. People commonly approach negotiation with the idea that each side takes a position, trades concessions, and agrees (sometimes) at a point in the middle. This certainly is an accurate description of how many people negotiate (and one cannot discount these dynamics in dealing with certain issues), however, the disadvantages of this kind of "horsetrading" are that it becomes a battle of wills and creates bad feelings, it takes longer, and agreements reached often are less satisfactory because of the lack of focus on the parties' real needs and concerns.

The principle of focusing on interests not positions underlies most dispute resolution theory and practice. One way to understand this concept is to understand issues as the questions to be answered, a position as one party's answer to these questions, and their interests as the reasons they hold that position. First articulated in the book Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury, these authors champion the view that the essence of successful negotiations is to avoid bargaining over positions. They outline some very helpful principles for how to do this effectively, all of which shift the dynamics to more creative problem solving:

Discuss and address interests. It is critical to ask why one side is asserting a particular position on the issues, to understand what they really need to achieve. Interests can be met in many ways; positions are much more rigid.

Understand the role of interpersonal dynamics in negotiations and help people move on. Fisher and Ury call this "separating the people from the problem," meaning that it is important to understand the role that emotions play in a dispute but not to allow those emotions to block one from addressing each problem on its merits. Personal prejudices and prior history need to be understood - they may constitute problems people want to solve - but people should not let themselves be so motivated by bad interpersonal feelings that this becomes a barrier to self interest.

Generate a wide range of options, minimizing judgments at first. People are less likely to hit an impasse when many options are being evaluated. Somehow, it creates at least a partial perception of everyone being on the same "side of the table," evaluating the pros and cons of options more collaboratively. A common example of this is the technique of brainstorming.

Agree on criteria by which to judge options for resolution. It may be easier at the beginning of a process to list the general requirements that a potential agreement must satisfy than to develop the details of specific options. Such criteria are also very helpful in maintaining the sense of common endeavor in evaluating options as they emerge, for two reasons. First, the legitimacy of each side's needs is at least tacitly accepted - these criteria are often surrogates for parties' underlying interests. In using these criteria together, parties find themselves dealing with how to solve others' problems, and experience their own problems being treated as relevant by the others. Second, where parties agree on objective criteria, it can help break impasses.

Although these are good principles on which to ground constructive dialogue, not every negotiation is entirely interest based - eventually a pie can't be made any larger and parties are faced with deciding who will get what. A certain amount of competition is inevitable in dividing up a finite resource (or fixed pie). Nor can the effect that political power plays in negotiation dynamics be ignored. But these principles do allow participants in a consensus-building effort to maximize the creativity needed to create more "joint gains" - an essential ingredient in sound resource management decisions. Several contributors to current negotiation theory (e.g., Raiffa, Lax, Lewicki) focus on the "tension between cooperation and competition," distinguishing between "creating value" and "claiming value." While urging parties to seek ways to expand the pie, (i.e., to invent solutions that achieve joint gains, they also caution parties that if one side cooperates - for example by sharing information - and others compete, the more competitive often win.

There are additional reasons why resource management issues are difficult to resolve. Convening a consensus-building process will not make these challenges go away magically. Rather, for a consensus process to be successful, it must be designed with these challenges in mind:

Controversial natural resources issues often are made more difficult to resolve by intra-organizational and institutional complexities.
Parties’ incentives to address one another’s needs may be unclear.
Forests, wetlands, wildlife populations are finite, increasing the potential for competition among users.
Technical and scientific uncertainties can complicate negotiations.
Disputes over natural resources generally involve public issues, not private matters alone; laws, press, and governmental institutions all play a significant role.

An important characteristic of consensus-building processes, as they have been implemented over the past 20 years in the resource management arena, is that they are flexible. Individual processes can and should be tailored to each dispute after an analysis of the particular opportunities and barriers involved. Controversies develop at different stages in the "life-cycle" of a controversy, with different degrees of polarization, and with information and options elaborated at varying degrees of detail. Legal constraints on the process and alternatives to settlement available to the parties also vary case by case and at different stages of the same matter.

Institutional Dynamics

Resource management conflicts are more often between organizations or groups than between individuals. Thus, the individuals at the table must get proposals ratified by others who are not participating directly. Because each entity has its own internal decision-making process, negotiators (and neutrals) need to know the degree to which each representative can speak for his or her constituency and the freedom each has to make proposals and to commit to an agreement. Negotiators also must keep their constituencies informed about progress and problems between negotiation sessions to increase the likelihood that agreements, if reached, will be ratified.

Complex or Changing Incentives

In contrast to more traditional administrative or judicial proceedings, few, if any, established procedures are available to structure routine applications of consensus-building processes to resource management issues. (The Administrative Dispute Resolution Act, at the federal level, does provide consistent definitions, and a few selected statutes direct the formation of consensus processes for specific issues.) Each party, with different strengths in different forums, will have different perceptions about the relative advantages of negotiating. Thus, parties are as likely to approach a negotiation with different assumptions on how to structure the negotiating relationship as they are to have different views on the issues.

A standard element of good mediation practice in resolving controversial environmental issues is to conduct a feasibility assessment with the potential parties to a negotiation. All parties should feel they have something to gain, and no one should feel the negotiation process would harm their current standing on the resolution of the issues. Thus, it becomes a goal of the assessment to help parties assess how potential negotiation results would compare with their alternatives. Often, how the negotiation process is organized will directly affect the potential of the process to satisfy parties' interests. A key product of any feasibility assessment will be general agreement (often mediated) among the parties as to who will participate and in what way, the scope of issues, any deadlines, frequency of meetings, information needed to make sound decisions, who the mediator will be (if any), and other ground rules.

Multiple Parties/Issues

Because natural resources, although renewable, are finite and exist in specific places, claims of rights to use the "same" locations for different uses are made by multiple units and levels of government and diverse private interests. This generally means that resource management disputes involve many parties and many issues, making organizing any negotiation process more difficult. Sometimes coalitions can be formed, where several parties can be represented by one negotiator. Concerns have been raised about limits to participation being imposed in some consensus-processes, where national interests may be at stake over what others might view as local resources. This issue of scale, who has a right to participate, and the inability due to lack of resources of some groups to participate in many different processes needs exploration.

Complex Scientific and Technical Issues

Sound scientific and technical information is essential for creating solutions that work. However, parties to natural resources issues are confronted with large volumes of information, requiring a wide variety of expertise, and subject to honest differences of interpretation. Furthermore, gaps and uncertainties in the available information base are inevitable as scientific understanding continues to grow.

Models can be developed to help deal with scientific uncertainties, but they themselves can be sources of dispute between the model builders or sources of confusion in negotiations where parties have unequal technical resources. Joint fact-finding processes, in which parties agree on the design of a model or study in advance, show considerable promise. Similarly, technical committees or information sharing workshops have been used constructively to supplement policy negotiations.

Public/Political Dimension

Another characteristic complicating resource management conflicts is that the issues in dispute involve public matters that may need to be resolved in public forums. Negotiators need to deal with the press and open meeting laws sensitively, and arrive at outcomes that can withstand public scrutiny and comment. Carefully designed, consensus-building processes can maximize the flexibility within public institutions while holding negotiated solutions to the same legal and regulatory standards to which any decision would be subject.

Conclusion

Experience suggests that the following prerequisites and strategies will increase the likelihood that consensus-building can be successful in complex, resource management issues:

all can gain something they value in the process;
all important players are willing to participate;
participants agree on the process structure and goal, including a definition of the problem;
no one will be asked to compromise a basic value;
participants share information with each other or seek information together early in the process;
interests are identified and communicated;
multiple options are encouraged, and parties discuss criteria by which to evaluate them;
the time necessary for negotiation is available;
the issue is "ripe" for resolution, and there is a deadline or urgency for decision;
the process is transparent and communication with broader interests occurs throughout; and
all parties have authority to make commitments

References

Bingham, Gail, Resolving Environmental Disputes: A Decade of Experience. The Conservation Foundation, 1986.

Bingham, Gail; Aaron Wolf, and Tim Wohlgenant, Resolving Water Disputes: Conflict and Cooperation in the United States, the Near East, and Asia (Washington DC: U.S. Agency for International Development, Irrigation Support Project for Asia and the Near East) 1994.

Fisher, Roger, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes. Penguin Books, Second Edition, 1991.

Mccloskey, Michael, "The skeptic: Collaboration has its limits," High Country News. May 13, 1996

Moore, Christopher W., The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1987.

Raiffa, Howard. The Art and Science of Negotiation. Belknap Press, 1982.

Singer, Linda R. Settling Disputes: Conflict Resolution in Business, Families, and the Legal System, Westview Press, 1990.

Ury, William, Jeanne Brett, and Stephen Goldberg. Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1988.