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The Context....
As
pressures on the region's natural riches mount, our leaders face the increasingly
difficult challenge of protecting and managing resources for multiple
uses. The environmental arena invokes passion because the consequences
of these issues are so profound to individual and community life.Many
such issues involving air, water, and land use transcend state boundaries.
The Southeast needs to find ways to strengthen community ties and to help
conflicting interests find both common ground and higher ground where
qualities such as fairness, integrity, and responsibility are both expected
and rewarded. Conflict can be resolved productively when disputants become
more knowledgeable about public issues, communicate in a more meaningful
and effective way, open the debate to include all stakeholders, and negotiate
in principled ways to settle disagreements. Our hopes for SE-NRLI, and
ways of making these hopes become reality, are described below.
The SE-NRLI Vision
The southeastern region will engage in productive dialogue and collaborative problem solving of natural resource issues important to community sustainability and thus be able to effectively manage, conserve, and protect the Southeast’s natural resources.
The SE-NRLI Mission
To develop leaders throughout the Southeast who can help groups involved in contentious natural resources issues move beyond conflict toward consensus building and collaborative problem solving.
Objectives
To Create A Leadership Network of People:
• Who are engaged in working with natural resources at the regional level;• Who are drawn from all parts of the Southeast and from all sectors of activity – local, state, and federal government, elected officials, industry and private small businesses, academia, civic organizations, nonprofit environmental organizations, and individual citizen activists;
• Who will earn each other’s trust while respecting each other’s different perspectives;
• Who will be able to call on each other for assistance and ideas; and
• Who will have the leadership skills needed to engage in collaborative problem solving around environmental issues, to move beyond conflict, and to find creative solutions.
Special Thanks
SE-NRLI is supported in part by a grant from the U.S. Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry Program.
Contact Info:
SE-NRLI
Institute for Environmental Negotiation
104 Emmet Street
Charlottesville, Va 22903
Phone: (434) 924-1970
Fax: (434) 924-0231
Email: ckbrennan@virginia.edu