Excerpt
PUBLIC land disputes are increasing at alarming rates. Tension is mounting. Ranchers, environmentalists, and government agencies are on the firing line, often drawn into conflict with one another. Issues surface. Positions are drawn and emotions high. For or against. The fight brews. Someone wins and someone loses; sometimes all parties lose.
This tension is acutely felt in the West. In a feature Newsweek article in 1991, Chesley writes, “nothing stirs up sentiment like an occasional war over a vanishing species. The typical battle pits the creature or plant against loggers, miners, ranchers, farmers, or commercial developers” (I). But there is a method to settle disputes based on a “win-win” approach. Parties Getting Agreement (PGA) is a three-part meeting preparation and management process that provides strategies for facilitating a group toward consensus. We have found in our work as facilitators and mediators in public land planning meetings, involving ranchers, federal agency, environment, and mining representatives, that parties in conflict can be aided in resolving their differences with this method.
Confusion may exist among some readers …
Footnotes
Michael J. Havercamp is an associate professor and state extension specialist in organizational development, Department of Human Development and Family Studies; David J. Torell is an associate professor and extension educator, Nevada Cooperative Extension; and William P. Evans is an assistant professor and state extension specialist in youth development, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, NV.
- Copyright 1993 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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