Bertarelli Summer2024 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 71
CO M M UNIC AT IO N
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RE W I L D I NG
Often, there’s deeper roots
to conflicts, a history of
unresolved disputes.
And finally, in Washington State in the United
States, we had a project involving wolves. Wolves are
one of the most controversial and divisive conservation
conflicts. But by bringing hunters, law enforcement,
government, animal welfare, conservationists, and
farmers together, they were able to take this divisive
issue and turn it into something that could bring them
together and help build respect and shared understanding. And ultimately, they made really complex policy
decisions together.
engagement, and try to meet people on all sides of the
conflict to get a 360-degree view of what is going on.
And in particular, I try to start with any internal conflicts that one side is dealing with, like squabbling siblings who need to be separated to remember that they
are, in fact, family. Each context is different, and one
size won’t fit all.
There are lessons here that anyone working in conservation can apply to their own work. Sometimes, if a
conflict is really bad, you need a third, neutral party to
come in. But transformation can happen within small
teams, and even as a result of one stakeholder taking
the lead.
Ultimately, if you have a stake in a project’s success, that can be enough. Any conservation project
depends on the stakeholders, not on a neutral thirdparty. Engage with the principle of conservation conflict transformation—go deep, go wide, go long, respect
one another’s human needs—and a path can open up in
even the most difficult circumstances.
HOW LONG DOES ALL THIS WORK TAKE ,
you might
ask? Well, it depends. The Galapagos project, for example, involved two weeks on the ground and about four
months of preparation before that. The Washington
wolf project, on the other hand, took three and a half
years. It can take years to build trust, but if you bring
people together in the right way, then building that
trust can become more efficient and effective, getting
you further faster.
Conservation conflict transformation is not one single process. It is context dependent. We need to look
at what the society needs, and what scale we are working at. Who needs to be engaged? And what does that
engagement look like? I always start with one-on-one
FranCinE maddEn is the executive director of the Center for
Conservation Peacebuilding. Her work has been featured in The
Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Wall Street Journal.
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