Resolving conflict: An expert panel in action

Excerpt

IF conservationists and industry would only sit down to talk, their differences could be resolved. This remedy, like most old wives tales, contains only a bit of truth. Where the differences are substantial, no party will yield unless, by so doing, it avoids a real threat or reaps a palpable gain.

Some conservationists have discovered that industry is justifiably eager to avoid being depicted on the evening news as responsible for the rape and pillage of natural resources, particularly if that claim is substantiated by credible, unbiased experts. A recent example of how these tools and threats were used to resolve disagreement over private forestry techniques—a resolution achieved only with the openness of industry and conservationists—occurred in southeastern Oklahoma and southwestern Arkansas.

Conservationists' concerns

Over the last decade the Oklahoma Wildlife Federation and more recently the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) have been involved in continuing discussions with the Weyerhaeuser Company about timber management practices on Weyer-haeuser's 900,000-acre holding in southeastern Oklahoma and a contiguous, similar sized holding in southwestern Arkansas.

At the outset of the dispute, the Oklahoma Wildlife Federation estimated that Weyerhaeuser was clearcutting more than 60,000 acres …