Nuts and Bolts – Conflict, Violence, and Peacebuilding in the Coalfields: Confronting Mountaintop Removal

Mountaintop removal (MTR) has reduced energy prices and provided corporate income, employment in high-unemployment areas, and taxes to pay for schoolteachers and nursing clinics. It also has destroyed land and streams and divided families and communities. It also lays bare, in stark terms, choices conveniently ignored so that we can keep our current lifestyles.

One factor that makes MTR such an intractable issue is the perceived lack of other economic development options. Wendy Willis, Deputy Director of the Policy Consensus Initiative/National Policy Consensus Center (PIC / NPCC), and Frank Dukes, Director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation, University of Virginia, are partnering on a community capacity building initiative that seeks to positively navigate community and social change and engage communities to reach shared goals. This effort will not address the suitability of MTR, but will help local leadership increase their capacity to address conflict and polarization and examine other community development options.

This session invites participants to consider these questions:

• What steps can be taken that can lead to better decisions, decreased conflict and improved relationships among key players in the coalfield region of Appalachia?
• What are the foundational issues and what are sub-text?
• Who are the key parties who need to be involved?
• What current governance practices help or hinder resolution of these issues?
• In situations where violence and threats of violence exist, what if any responsibilities does an E/PP practitioner have?

Presenters’ Bios:

Wendy Willis is the Deputy Director of PIC / NPCC, which supports elected leaders and communities in designing and implementing innovative, collaborative solutions for community-based problems and opportunities. Wendy has taken the lead at PCI in connecting between citizen-based decision making and collaborative implementation. Formerly, Wendy was the Executive Director for City Club of Portland, where she became a visible leader in the field of civic engagement. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown Law Center and holds a B.A. from Willamette University.

Dr. Frank Dukes: As Director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN), Dr. Dukes leads an organization that helps individuals, communities, and public agencies find just and sustainable solutions to complex problems and conflict. He works at local, state, and federal levels on projects involving environment and land use, community development, education, and health. He is co-founder and core faculty of the Virginia Natural Resources Leadership Institute. As part of IEN's "Collaborative Stewardship Initiative," he initiated the "Community-Based Collaboratives Research Consortium" seeking to assess and understand local collaborative efforts involving natural resources and community development, and the "Best Practices Guidance Project" resulting in the publication of Collaboration: A Guide for Environmental Advocates.

His book Resolving Public Conflict: Transforming Community and Governance describes how public conflict resolution procedures can assist in vitalizing democracy.  He is co-author of Reaching for Higher Ground in Conflict Resolution, which describes how diverse groups and communities can create expectations for addressing conflict with integrity, vision, and creativity.