Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (33 page)

The call from Lee Doney was like someone had read my mind during the five years I struggled with moving from confrontation to consensus. I felt lucky I was a Canadian because Canada took up the round table movement like no other country. This was due in large part to the fact that two Canadians were instrumental in producing the report. Maurice Strong, who had chaired the 1972 UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm and would go on to chair the UN Environment Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, was an influential member of the United Nations that produced the report . And Jim McNeil, a former deputy minister in the federal government, had written the report. Needless to say they had strong connections in Ottawa and Canadian society in general and they pressed their colleagues into making their recommendations a reality. By early 1990 the national government, all 10 provincial governments, and both territories had announced the formation of round tables on the environment and the economy. A short-lived revolution in Canadian political life had begun.

Following the publication of the Brundtland Report, as
Our Common Future
was also known, the former president of the University of British Columbia, David Strangway, was asked by the provincial government to write a report on the feasibility of establishing a round table to consider the issues around sustainability for British Columbia. His report formed the basis for our province’s entry into the round table movement in Canada. CBC Radio News carried the B.C. government’s announcement that a round table would be formed to our shortwave radio in Winter Harbour. They were looking for volunteers. I phoned the toll-free number and put my name in the hat.

By this time, in the summer of 1990, our little family-run salmon farm was foundering. Since we had begun in 1984, much had changed in the industry. Where there once had been a few pioneers with homemade equipment, there were now large corporations investing millions in state-of-the-art facilities. Where there had once been limited supply and high prices, there was now a lot of farmed salmon on the markets and prices fell steadily. And now the new farms were switching from growing Pacific chinook salmon to Atlantic salmon, a costlier investment, but a faster growing fish less susceptible to disease. Our profit margin shrunk until it went below the waterline.

None of us had much money, so we could not operate at a loss for a long period. The consolidation of the industry was just beginning as companies with deep pockets bought up smaller companies even though they were losing money, just to stay in the game. I could see the writing on the wall and realized we probably wouldn’t make a go of it in the long run. Salmon farming had clearly become big business and that wasn’t us.

The round table provided a perfect opportunity for me to begin the transition from salmon farming back into environmental work, only this time in the context of sustainability. Here was a chance to be around the same table with thinking people from all walks of life to discuss how we could balance the needs of the people with the needs of the environment. Unfortunately the environmental groups weren’t quite as thrilled to get an invitation as I was. In all of British Columbia, the birthplace of Greenpeace, only two other people with green credentials agreed to join the process. One was Bob Peart, a member of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, who turned out to be a very thoughtful participant and one who genuinely sought consensus. The other was Vicky Husband of the Sierra Club, a firebrand and no friend of the forest industry, nor any industry for that matter. She had joined reluctantly after much arm-twisting. The government needed to have an environmental activist on board and she had finally consented.

It turned out Vicky was one of the very few environmental activists in the whole of Canada to join the 13 round tables formed in 1990. Her reluctance to join was partly due to pressure from her colleagues to turn down the invitation. Not a single Greenpeace representative ever joined the effort, even though many were asked. For me, this confirmed my conclusion that activists in the environmental movement had become so insular that they chose to boycott the very process that could bring their ideas into the mainstream. But they didn’t want to talk about sustainability or consensus, they wanted to continue to fight a war through the media, a war in which they were the good guys and their targets were branded as the enemies of the earth.

I joined in the meetings with enthusiasm. There were 30 of us, chosen from a wide range of professions and regions of the province. There were mayors and ex-mayors, labor leaders and business people, ranchers and foresters, tourist operators and fish farmers. Most of us were chosen because we had multiple perspectives, mine being environmental activism, aquaculture, and forestry. Chuck Connaghan, a seasoned labor/management negotiator, was appointed facilitator and Lee Doney was given the full-time job of heading our secretariat. Our budget exceeded $2 million, so we had the resources to pay for travel, per diems, and consultants. A new kind of think tank was born. We were a true citizens’ group with real resources and access to the highest levels of decision making in our government.

There were not many published guides to running a round table with 30 different perspectives on sustainability. One book that helped us get oriented was
Getting to Yes
.”
[1]
In it Roger Fisher and William Ury present four principles for negotiating agreements:

Separate the people from the problem.

Focus on interests rather than positions.

Generate a variety of options before settling on an agreement; and

Insist that the agreement be based on objective criteria.

This approach influenced the entire round table, consensus-based movement in the early 1990s and provided a base from which to move forward.

We soon realized the scope of our task was enormous. We had been charged with developing sustainability policy recommendations for all aspects of society, the economy, and the environment. Needless to say it took us a while to get a sense of direction. Many of the early meetings were simply about discussing the meaning of sustainability and getting to know one another. There was a wide range of opinions and attitudes, which spanned the spectrum from very preservationist to outright capitalistic. The beauty of sustainability is that it allows for this wide range. There is a place for total preservation and a place for relatively unfettered commerce. There is a place for community and there is a place for globalization. There is a place for culture and for science.

But the other beauty of sustainability is that there is no place for misinformation, dishonesty, dogma, or prejudice. One must come to the table with an open mind, an honest demeanor, an interest in facts, and a willingness to try to understand diverse points of view. One-sided attitudes about people and politics don’t fit with the effort to balance all points of view. People who come with hidden agendas and insincere motives are soon discovered, as the round table process is rigorous and thorough. This is why “politicos” don’t like the process. They have an ideological approach to the world and they already know who is right and who is wrong. They aren’t there to learn from other perspectives but only to push their own narrow agendas. In the end they are boring.

The intellectual stimulation of the round table proved infectious. Nearly all of us were excited by the exchanges and the conversations and the debates. Almost miraculously, within six months, members with disparate interests bonded: we came to like people with whom we had intense philosophical and political differences. We realized political differences were partly about social separation and the context of our daily lives. When we were forced to sit opposite one another and experience one another’s points of view first hand, we developed an empathy that hadn’t existed before. Heaven help us, we “understood” one another better.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t irreconcilable differences among some of our members. But at least we could separate the person from the problem and begin to focus on interests rather than positions. Just learning to speak to the “other side” in a civil manner made all the difference in the world.

The main result of our deliberations was a series of documents on various aspects of sustainability and the consensus process. We covered sustainable transportation, urban design, energy, education for sustainability, and wrote our own version of how to get to yes. The latter involved a series of case histories of previous successful resolutions to difficult conflicts in B.C. and other regions of Canada.

We published a guide explaining how local round tables could be set up and operated. I chaired this committee. As a result I developed a keen interest in the role of the facilitator in round table procedure. A facilitator takes the place of the traditional chairperson, playing a very different role with a different set of skills.

Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote some years later titled “From Confrontation to Consensus”

Consensus process is not a rigid, rules-based, system such as Robert’s Rules that govern directors meetings and the like. But it is not a free-for-all either. The dialogue must be structured in such a way as to achieve an understanding of each other’s points of view among all the participants. This can only be achieved if certain principles and methods are adopted and adhered to.

First and foremost, it is important that a professional facilitator, who understands the nature of consensus and has had experience with it, is retained to help guide the process. The facilitator is not “in charge” like a chairperson but rather provides a service function, helping to steer the group towards mutual understanding.

Second, and just as foremost,
consensus process does not mean unanimous agreement about everything
. While it may be nice to think about an ideal or theoretical definition of consensus meaning perfect harmony, in practical terms this is never possible. The practical definition of consensus must recognize there will always be differences of opinion and therefore differences in the position taken by various participants in the Round Table process. This is where the talent of the professional facilitator is needed.

The job of the facilitator, in the final analysis, is to help the Round Table produce a consensus document, which expresses the areas of unanimous agreement among the participants, and where there is not unanimous agreement, an expression of the disagreement in words unanimously agreed to by all the participants.

The above definition of consensus can usually be achieved, providing the facilitator is capable and the participants are genuine in their desire to reach agreement.

Round Tables are not a substitute for government. They don’t make policy like the Fijian elders; they provide policy advice to democratically elected bodies, whether these are national, state/provincial, or local. For this reason it is not usually appropriate for Round Tables to be ad hoc (self-constituted) in nature. It is usually best if Round Tables are appointed by, and answerable to, a democratically elected body that is in a position to make decisions based on the Round Table’s advice.

There are many variations on this theme. For example, if a private company wants to foster the creation of a Round Table to consider an industrial proposal, it can do so by working with the appropriate level of government. If an environmental group wants to employ the Round Table process to focus attention on a development it believes is harming the environment, it can also do so by working with the appropriate elected body.

It is nearly always desirable that the appropriate elected body be responsible for determining or approving the terms of reference, appointing the members, and appointing the facilitator for the Round Table. Then the Round Table is consultative to, and answerable to, the democratic system. Private sector proponents can fund local Round Tables, providing they do not control the membership or direction of the process. This creates a situation where the credibility of the process is in the hands of elected government. If the government body loses confidence in the process, it can be disbanded.

The membership of a Round Table has an initial meeting with the appointed facilitator in order to review the terms of reference and to provide any feedback to the conveners of the process, such as the elected government that appointed it. At this stage the members must be satisfied all legitimate interests have been included in the make-up of the Round Table. If they think additional members are required they must indicate this. Also, the members must be satisfied with the terms of reference; that they are not too limited in scope but also not too open-ended. All members must agree at the outset that no interest group is missing and the terms of reference are correct. A good facilitator can usually help the group reach consensus on these two points. If new members need to be appointed it is up to the facilitator to go to the authority and convince them to do so. The principle is that the Round Table must be inclusive, excluding no legitimate or even possibly legitimate interest. Beginning with these basic issues, if all members of the Round Table agree to the membership and terms of reference they have already reached consensus on important points. The process has begun!