By Mara Elana Burstein for EDRblog.org.
In 2015, we posted 27 blogs from 26 guest authors. Here is a summary, in case you didn’t get to read them all:
General
- A is for A**hole (Michele Straube, EDR Program)
- Facilitation… or Something More? (Patrick Field, Consensus Building Institute)
- Book Review – Everything Is Workable: A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution (Mara Elana Burstein, EDR Program)
- NEPA’s Fatal Flaw, an Impediment to Collaboration (Kelsey Kahn, Green Energy Institute, Lewis & Clark College 2015)
- Cultivating a culture of dialogue rather than debate (Danya Rumore, EDR Program)
EDR Best Practices and Lessons Learned
- A River Between Us: Lessons in Conflict Resolution (Jen Reynolds, University of Oregon Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center)
- Keeping Sandpoint’s Quality of Life Strong through Collaboration (Susan Drumheller, Idaho Conservation League)
- Canyonlands Research Center Collaboration, a Student’s Perspective (Alice de Anguera, Master of Natural Resources, UT State University)
- Let’s Be Honest: Doing Group Processes Right (Renette Anderson, UT Department of Environmental Quality)
- The Value of Iterative NEPA and Collaboration (David Loomis & Jay Strand, U.S. Forest Service)
- Ingenious EDR Designs are Human Centered (Joshua King, The Langdon Group)
- EDR: Three Pieces of Advice (Mara Elana Burstein, EDR Program)
- Tracking EDR Progress: Looking to the Past to Guide the Future (Micah Fisher and Tina Sablan, graduate students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa)
- Open Discussion is the Answer (Jim Keyes, UT State University Extension)
EDR Opportunities for Current Controversial Issues
- Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for … Mediation? (Nathan S. Bracken, Smith Hartvigsen, PLLC)
- Through Bears Ears, Tribes Lead the Way for True Collaboration over Utah’s Public Lands (Anna Elza Brady, University of Oregon, School of Law)
- Ready or Not: Enhancing the Readiness of Communities to Prepare for and Manage Climate-Related Risks (Danya Rumore, EDR Program)
- Finding Joy in Complexity: Managing Sage-Grouse (Lorien Belton, UT State University Extension)
- Responding to Climate-Related Risks: Why Collaboration is Key (Hannah Payne, Master of City Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Water Diplomacy… in the West? (Danya Rumore, EDR Program)
- Still Brokering Peace… Between People and Prairie Dogs (Kevin D. Bunnell, UT Division of Wildlife)
- Bridging a Utah Cultural Divide: What’s Environmental Education Got to do With it? (Paul Parker, HawkWatch International)
- Utah Program on Collaboration (Mara Elana Burstein, EDR Program)
- Fracking in Populated Areas: The Most Literal Application of ‘Not in My Backyard’ (Kirstin Lindstrom, counsel for SPower)
Unique Human Ability for Collaboration and Dialogue
- So Little Time, So Many Expectations—Are they Manageable?? (Cherie Shanteau-Wheeler, Triangle Associates, Inc.)
- Making Nice Isn’t for Everyone (Lucy Moore, environmental mediator)
What would you like to read about in 2016? We have lots of new ideas to share with you this year (book reviews, interviews, more stories of EDR successes and challenges), but we’re always open to suggestions.
Send an email to mara.burstein@law.utah.edu with topics and/or guest bloggers you’d like to hear from. Feel free to send us rebuttals, alternative views, or proposed solutions to all of the topics we’ve covered so far. Or, volunteer yourself as a guest blogger.
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Mara Elana Burstein has 10 years experience working on air quality, energy, and sustainability issues. She is the Communications and EDR Blog Coordinator at the Environmental Dispute Resolution Program at the Wallace Stegner Center, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, and owner of Natural Resource Strategies—a consulting firm that provides strategic planning, communications, and facilitation services.