The Politics of Environmental Mediation

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the downfalls of mediation with environmental issues. The main roadblocks are the friendly atmosphere of mediation, the power imbalance between environmentalists and development companies, and the fact that the mediation process supports development issues naturally.

The first section of the paper discusses how when mediators set a friendly atmosphere the environmentalists tend to start liking their opponents and in addition want to seem like peaceful people, so they end up conceding more than intended. I felt like this section of the article was negatively stereotyping environmentalists as people with no backbone. Perhaps this has been a phenomena in environmental mediations, but I don't think the answer is to fundamentally change the mediation process by taking away the social aspect; rather the answer seems to be to get the environmental party more training. It just seemed generalized and seemed to imply that environmentalists just fall over in front of corporate people. Overall, I agree with the statement on the 4th page that the responsibility for correcting this lies with the participants, not the mediators.

The second main point deals with the imbalance of power between the two main parties. The development groups have a greater access to economic and political resources. This affects the neutrality of mediation three ways: who is participating, superior technical analysis, and involuntary participation. The environmental groups can view their participation as non-voluntary because they do not have the resources to sustain a long court battle. Environmental groups also can have less political power, and their interest groups are wide spread, so often there is not a representative to the mediation process from all of the interest groups in a conflict. Since the environmental groups have less power, they are bound to agree to solutions that do not fulfill their needs because some concessions from the powerful group are better than none. There is also a section within this part of the paper that argues that some mediators see themselves as just a mirror that reflects the imbalances of society and that they focus on their process and not take responsibility for perpetuating imbalances. Laue would disagree with them because he argues that no mediators can truly be neutral and in order to be a good mediator you need to try and balance the power between the two parties.

The mediation process itself can be bias towards the pro-development party. The mediators consider that both parties have equal and negotiable interests. What can rarely come to the table is the core issue itself: whether or not the land should be developed. One mediation focused on how the mall should be environment friendly, but the fact that mall was being built was never discussed. Mediators rarely see the environmental issues as part of the larger structural and value choices from our society. There is also debate about whether environmentalists should even go to the table about certain issues. Some issues are fundamental beliefs that cannot be negotiated, like being opposed to nuclear power. Those are non-negotiable issues to some people and thus should not be brought to mediation.

In conclusion, it appears as though in order for environmental mediations to be successful, the environmental party needs more training and/or more power.