A step-by-step guide connecting theory to practice Environmental Conflict Management introduces students to the research and practice of environmental conflict and provides a step-by-step process for engaging stakeholders and other interested parties in the management of environmental disputes. In each chapter, authors Dr. Tracylee Clarke and Dr. Tarla Rai Peterson first introduce a specific concept or process step and then provide exercises, worksheets, role-plays, and brief case studies so students can directly apply what they are learning. The appendix includes six additional extended case studies for further analysis. In addition to providing practical steps for understanding and managing conflict, the text identifies the most relevant laws and policies to help students make more informed decisions. Students will develop techniques for public involvement and community outreach, strategies for effective meeting management, approaches to negotiating options and methodologies for communicating concerns and working through differences, and outlines for implementing and evaluating strategies for sustaining positive community relations.

For over a decade, conflict among members of a small Native American tribe in Southwestern Utah has resulted in intra-tribal fights, lawsuits, a coup and a new regime, and threats of termination of tribal membership. At the core of the conflict among members of the Skull Valley Goshutes over the storing of nuclear waste on their reservation are issues of political, cultural, and environmental identity. Using narrated identity theory by Paul Ricoeur, the author analyzes narratives from tribal members and concludes that both political and cultural identity are constructed, maintained, and negotiated through narratives about nuclear waste and are articulated in such a manner as to create a direct connection with the natural world. The environment becomes more than a context for political and cultural conflict: it constitutes the conflict itself. Identity narratives become the means by which conflict about the nuclear waste gets constructed and reconstructed. Likewise, the nuclear waste controversy becomes the conduit by which tribal identity is allowed to evolve and change creating a complex milieu for tribal policy development and decision making.