New European training curricula for facilitating environmental conflicts

Social struggles over how the environment is managed and conserved are unfolding in new directions. In this scenario, an adequate mediation of environmental conflicts is a key for: avoiding conflict escalation and social polarization; improving engagement, participation and compliance with environmental policy.The need of environmental mediation for dispute resolution in the European context has been recognized in the last decade. Because of that, there are different needs the project has addressed: 1.Stakeholders involved in these conflicts usually lack knowledge and abilities (listening skills, negotiation tools, etc.) to deal with them, and there is a lack of awareness on the potentials of facilitation for mitigating conflicts;2.There is also a lack of the environmental perspective in facilitation trainings that already exists. Many organizations of mediators are currently not properly trained in addressing environmental conflicts, lacking knowledge of the empirical approaches that are specific to these mediation practices; 3.Since this is an emerging field, trainings and practices need to be enriched. There is a need within the professionals to share methods and tools. There is also a lack of joint vision at the European level

Objective 1: Map existing training initiatives and programs with respect to facilitation/mediation of environmental conflict. Objective 2: Enrich the training practices of each partner through sharing good practices. Objective 3: Co-create some new training approach with the elements from the different curricula that can be useful for the local contexts. Objective 4: Use lessons learnt from accumulating experience and partner interaction to enrich current theory and offer new insights. Objective 5: Disseminate best practice and theory developments/insights for facilitation/mediation of environmental conflicts to broader audiences addressing such conflicts in everyday life context.

Activities implemented have been the same as those described in the initial project. All of them are linked with the objectives. A brief explanation: •Face to face transnational meeting in Madrid (obj. 1 and 2). The main contents were: Curriculum units; Definition of intellectual outputs and dissemination event; Experimentation with different mediation methods. •Two experiential online learning activities (obj. 2 and 4). Each partner was responsible of presenting tools or methods they use both in environmental conflicts and in mediation trainings. Each activity lasted for two half-days (8h in total each activity). •Two high quality intellectual outputs (obj. 3, 4 and 5): each of the documents was coordinated by one partner. All partners were responsible for both writing part of the documents and correcting other parts. •One online Dissemination Event (obj. 5). IOs were presented and innovative tools and methodologies were shown. 60 people from 15 different countries attended. •Coordination and project management. Some of the tasks carried out were: kick-off meeting, interim and final evaluation; Contracts with partners, drafting agreements and payments; Communication channels and branding tools; Follow-up meetings.

The results are: - Partners have learnt other methods and theories that can improve their practices as environmental mediators - Partner organisations have enriched their trainings. 60% of the partners have incorporated some of the learned methodologies into their new training programs (the others will do it in their upcoming courses). - Learning modules that form an adaptable curriculum have been produced. - A high-quality toolkit available to stakeholders, mediators, and trainers for improving the learning in mediation techniques have been coproduced. - Partners have coproduced a high-quality guideline available to practitioners and local authorities for improving their capacities to address social conflicts and plan for adequate resources needed for the mitigation. - Reference materials have been generated around the role of mediation and the conceptual foundations of trainings (will be published soon in an academic journals) - After the dissemination event, a community of mediators, researchers and managers interested in continuing to delve deeper into environmental mediation has been built. - The project has contributed with more awareness about the importance of appropriate management of environmental conflicts in the future