Conference Goal

The Conference seeks to bring together individuals in the fields of environmental conflict resolution, collaborative decision-making, and deliberative democracy, with business, public/non-profit, scientists, and public officials from all levels of government to:

• Share knowledge of current tools for effective conflict management and collaborative decision-making around environmental and public policy issues;

• Explore innovative strategies and practices for resolving complex policy disputes and promoting collaborative decision-making; and
• Develop a foundation for future efforts to apply dispute resolution and collaborative approaches to the management of climate change issues.

Local, regional, state and national governments, civic organizations and private entities are increasingly confronted with the causes, consequences, and conflicts of climate change. Addressing these challenges is a daunting task: it requires us to develop, articulate and promote broad-scale change, in the face of significant conflicts over values, interests and uncertainty. Collaborative governance systems have already demonstrated a powerful capacity for promoting sustainability and addressing other environmental challenges. As such, they hold forth promise as a critical tool for managing greenhouse gases, adapting to climate change, and ameliorating impacts on those who are affected most directly by climate change.

This conference will explore potential paths to effectively respond to these emerging challenges. We will examine the practice of collaborative decision-making and conflict resolution not only from the perspective of climate change, where its usage is fairly recent, but also from the wide range of environmental and public policy issues that are part of our ongoing practice.

In keeping with the urgency of the challenges associated with climate change, we will use our time in Denver not simply to assess current practices, but also as a launch pad to explore and design specific future actions that will enhance the effective use of collaborative decision-making in addressing these challenges.

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