What is a Devising Seminar? And how is it being used to address the risks facing Arctic Fisheries?

Arctic sea ice is retreating.  This is creating new opportunities to explore and traverse the Central Arctic Ocean, north of the Arctic Circle.  Some countries, like Russia, are eager to explore for oil and gas in this newly accessible area.  Greenpeace, which is devoting significant resources to protecting the Arctic, is pushing hard for the creation of a permanent sanctuary.  China and South Korea have declared themselves "Arctic Nations" now that their boats can, for at least part of the year, make their way through waters that used to be blocked by ice. Indigenous peoples, like the Inuit in Alaska,
Gwich'in People in Canada and the Saami People in Finland and Russia are worried about the environmental impacts that oil and gas exploration, or just oil and gas shipments might have on fisheries and sea mammals.  Because the area is newly opened, there is no scientific baseline
from which to work regarding the state of the Central Arctic Ocean ecosystems, particularly the fisheries.

The inter-governmental Arctic Council was created in 1996 to promote cooperation among the Arctic states.  It includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. The Council has offered Permanent Participant status and guaranteed consultation rights to Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic region.  Of the 4 million people in the Arctic, approximately 500,000 are indigenous.  The Arctic Circle is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to involve as many civil society groups as possible in collaborative decision-making about the Arctic.  More than 1,000 people participated in its recent annual meeting in Iceland. So, there is an official body and an unofficial body trying to draw attention to the need for more sustainable development and protection of environmental resources in the Arctic.  Unfortunately, the Council has no enforcement powers and existing treaties, like the United Nations Law of the Sea, as well as bilateral fishing agreements in the peripheral portions of the Arctic Ocean, don't guarantee that governmental and non-governmental parties will do the "right thing" when it comes to preserving the extraordinary marine resources of the Central Arctic or protecting the interests of Indigenous Peoples.

Several weeks ago, at Harvard Law School, the Program on Negotiation (PON) (an inter-university consortium committed to improving the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution) organized a two day Devising Seminar, the goal of which was to identify "good ideas" that might infuse formal decision-making by governments, First Peoples, industries and civil society groups whose actions could either doom or protect newly accessible areas of the Arctic.  For several months prior to the meeting, the PON team interviewed (privately and on a not-for-attribution basis) more than 45 of the government officials, local leaders, industry stakeholders, science organizations and environmental advocacy groups with long-standing interests in the future of the Arctic.  Those interviews were incorporated into a Stakeholder Assessment -- a 30 page document summarizing the views of each category of stakeholders (without attributing anything to any individual) in response to seven questions. Interviewees were asked about: (1) new risks to various Arctic fisheries posed by retreating sea ice;  (2) strategies for protecting fish stocks; (3) gaps in scientific knowledge; (4) the possible need for new monitoring systems; (5) concerns of indigenous communities; (6) ways of reducing the impact of oil spills that might occur; and (7) the possible need for new treaties or new institutional arrangements. The key findings are summarized in three one page tables.

Based on the Stakeholder Assessment, PON invited 30 participants, representing most of the key stakeholder groups, to the Cambridge meeting. The ground rules were simple: we would talk through
the six questions and see whether the group as a whole could come up with suggested responses that might meet the most important concerns of ALL of the relevant stakeholder groups.  That is, we defined good ideas as responses to the questions that could win nearly unanimous support from everyone present.  There were no speeches allowed. There was no opportunity to rehearse long-held official positions.  Those were all summarized in the Stakeholder Assessment that everyone received ahead of time. You can read the Stakeholder Assessment here http://scienceimpact.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/AFDS_StakeholderAssessment.pdf

Because everyone was participating in their "personal" rather than their official capacity, and no names would be appended to the eventual summary of good ideas, participants were free to engage in open-ended "problem solving," without fear that their statements would get them in trouble "back home."

The conversation was facilitated by the PON team (which I headed).  As the discussion unfolded, good ideas were captured in real time on a large screen behind the facilitators at the end of a
large horseshoe of tables and chairs around which the participants sat.  What people saw weren't minutes (again, no one was named). Only emerging points of agreement, summarized at the end of each segment of the discussion by the facilitation team, were recorded.

By the end of the session, the group was somewhat surprised that many points of agreement emerged, especially regards the desirability of a temporary moratorium on oil and gas exploration as well as fisheries development in the Central Arctic Ocean. This would permit collaborative scientific efforts a chance to build an accurate baseline and prepare generally accepted forecasts of changing conditions. Several groups were quite concerned that such a moratorium should only be freely adopted by each country involved, and not imposed.  Most were not willing to think in terms of a permanent moratorium, at least not at this time.  You can read the Summary Report here http://scienceimpact.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/AFDS_SummaryReport.pdf.

A Devising Seminar is a carefully constructed and facilitated forum in which a wide range of stakeholders, who often have no opportunity to engage in constructive face-to-face problem solving because of the political and institutional setting in which they operate, can, in fact, explore their differences and search for well-founded agreements. Such sessions can only succeed when they are preceded by the preparation of a full-blown Stakeholder Assessment,  prepared by a team of neutral facilitators trusted by the parties. Participants have to be assured that what they say in informal conversation won't come back to haunt them. The participants in the Devising Seminar must include a range of technical or scientific experts who can offer well-informed answers to factual questions that arise (even if they disagree among themselves).  The facilitation team must allow all the participants a chance to review and revise the draft Summary of the Devising Seminar report, even though no one's names are ultimately mentioned.

The Summary Report of the Devising Seminar on the Arctic Fisheries was presented at a recent plenary meeting of the Arctic Circle in Iceland.  More importantly, the document is now in the hands of the senior leadership of each of the Arctic Council countries, First Nation Permanent Participants and many of the most active scientific and civil society groups with a stake in the Arctic.  They are all free to cite or draw on the good ideas in the Summary Report in any way they want.  What's unusual, I think, is that they can put forward any recommendation contained in the Summary Report with confidence that almost all of the other stakeholder groups involved are likely support these ideas.

Hydropower Conflicts in Southern Chile

Chile is now relying on hydropower to support its amazing economic growth.  It is a country without oil, gas or coal reserves of its own.  Liquified natural gas (LNG) and coal imports are being increased, and there is some talk of expanding non-conventional renewable resources, but hydro represents at least 35% of the current energy mix and is likely to grow.  Somehow Chile needs to generate an additional 8000 MW of new power  by 2020 -- that's a 6% - 7% increase per year in electricity generation. The problem is, hydro has a variety of harsh impacts, especially when electricity has to be shipped 1,000 miles along an "electricity highway" that cuts through some of the most ecologically important areas in the world,  as well as the homelands of hundreds of thousands of indigenous (Mapuche) people.

I just spent several weeks with colleagues in northern and southern Chile (i.e. Patagonia) as part of an ongoing partnership between MISTI (MIT Science and Technology Initiative) and Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh).  In conjunction with the Consensus Building Institute we organized a Devising Seminar to explore the possibility of expanding opportunities for local and indigenous communities to participate in decisions about hydropower development that affects them.  A Devising Seminar is an informal event (usually a half day to a day) that brings together representatives (not in any official sense) of government, industry and civil society to hear each other out and think strategically about a difficult public policy question.  In our case, the question was, "How can communities, indigenous groups and environmental interests be given more of an opportunity to raise concerns and participate in hydro power decisions in a timely fashion?" The Devising Seminar, in Santiago, was facilitated (in Spanish) by skilled public dispute mediators. Before the event, confidential interviews were completed with carefully selected individuals. These were incorporated into a Background Document in which no one was quoted directly, but the scope and content of major disagreements was spelled out.  During the dialogue, points were raised in a respectful but passionate way. By the end of the discussion, the participants were surprised, I think, to discover more common ground than expected.  Everyone will benefit from early and constructive consultation with those likely to be effected by further hydropower development.  How such consultation ought to be structured, though, (i.e., should the laws regulating the scope and timing of Environmental Impact Assessment be changed?) will require further conversation.

Laws in Chile do not guarantee stakeholders much of a voice prior to final decisions being made about energy projects.  And, the country's Environmental Impact Assessment laws allow only 30 days for concerned citizens to review thousands of pages of technical material before decisions are finalized. While international law requires that indigenous people be consulted prior to decisions being made that might adversely affect them, Chile has been unclear about when and how this is supposed to happen. And, some indigenous leaders have made it clear that they expect to be on a more equal footing with the national officials when they meet to talk about such matters.

In some instances, the courts in Chile have stepped in, questioning the adequacy of regulatory reviews, even halting ongoing dam-building projects. But,  massive projects to which the government is committed will probably just be delayed temporarily.

Some way must be found, not just in Chile, to create a public space (I don't mean this in a literal sense) where energy policy-making and problem-solving can take place in a truly collaborative way.  There are certain projects that should probably not go ahead at all (in the locations proposed or in the manner  suggested). Affected groups should be able to point this out, early on, without having to argue that nothing of the sort should proceed anywhere.  Nor should they have to come up with technical solutions to all a country's problems in order to be taken seriously.  On the other hand, industry and government must be able to act after they have done everything they can to minimize and mitigate the adverse impacts of projects that are clearly in the public interest. Compensation might be required. In Canada, indigenous peoples are equity partners in certain energy projects. This gives them much more control over what happens as well as a share in the profits.  The ground rules for joint problem-solving need to be spelled out legislatively and administratively. Once they are, capacity building help (including money) must to be provided to communities of all kinds so they are ready to present their own view effectively.

I'm optimistic that Chile will make progress in the near future.  Public opposition to hydro development is growing. There is a chance this will spill over into growing opposition to all forms of energy development.  Energy companies are aware of this. They know they need to engage stakeholders in a timely way. Some experiments along these lines may be in the works.  A few successful efforts (even if they are not required by law) could pave the way for new legislation that would be probably be supported by all sides.  I'm hoping that my colleagues at UACh can assist energy companies and state and national agencies that want to pilot test new forms of collaborative problem-solving over energy development of all kinds.  I'm confident, from what I recently heard, that there are Mapuche and environmental leaders ready to partner if an offer to collaborate is made in good faith.