Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental Mediator

by Lucy Moore

In our increasingly polarized society, there are constant calls for compromise, for coming together. For many, these are empty talking points—for Lucy Moore, they are a life's work. As an environmental mediator, she has spent the past quarter century resolving conflicts that appeared utterly intractable. Here, she shares the most compelling stories of her career, offering insight and inspiration to anyone caught in a seemingly hopeless dispute.

Moore has worked on wide-ranging issues—from radioactive waste storage to loss of traditional grazing lands. More importantly, she has worked with diverse groups and ranchers, environmental activists, government agencies, corporations, tribal groups, and many more. After decades spent at the negotiating table, she has learned that a case does not turn on facts, legal merit, or moral superiority. It turns on people.

Through ten memorable stories, she shows how issues of culture, personality, history, and power affect negotiations. And she illustrates that equitable solutions depend on a healthy group dynamic. Both the mediator and opposing parties must be honest, vulnerable, open, and respectful. Easier said than done, but Moore proves that subtle shifts can break the logjam and reconcile even the most fiercely warring factions.

This book should be especially appealing to anyone concerned with environmental conflicts; and also to students in environmental studies, political science, and conflict resolution, and to academics and professionals in mediation and conflict resolution fields.

Genres: Environment, Nonfiction

216 pages, Hardcover

First published July 16, 2013

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Born and raised in Seattle, Lucy Moore went east to attend Radcliffe College, where she experienced the first of many formative culture shocks. After graduating, she worked for the Boston Welfare Department as a caseworker and later as an assistant to Dr. Robert Coles, author and child psychiatrist. Both jobs taught her to listen to and value the voices of those engaged in struggle and inspired her to strike out and make a difference. She moved to Chinle, Arizona, heart of Navajo country, where her two sons were born. There she taught with Head Start, sold car insurance (as an alternative to the exploitative practices of local dealers), and served as justice of the peace, registering hundreds of voters, holding trials, and acting as coroner. In 1975 she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she served for a brief time as policy aide for Indian affairs for the governor of New Mexico and worked as a paralegal before joining the fledgling conflict resolution firm Western Network.

Since the late 1980s Lucy has worked as a mediator, facilitator, trainer, and consultant specializing in natural resource and public policy disputes. She continues to work, as Lucy Moore Associates, Inc., with a diverse group of colleagues on both regional and national cases, often with a multicultural or tribal component. She has a credibility and depth of experience in Indian country rare in conflict resolution practitioners. Lucy regularly mentors those who might otherwise not have access to her field, believing that the future health of the profession depends on its diversity and accessibility.

Lucy lives in Santa Fe with her artist husband, Roberto Gallegos. Her memoir, Into the Canyon: Seven Years in Navajo Country, won the 2005 Willa Award for Best Memoir from Women Writing the West. Lucy is a regular contributor to Back Roads Radio, a program dedicated to original storytelling.

Reviews

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author was spurred to become a mediator in environmental disputes by sitting in on a community trying to come together over water. New Mexico had a fraught history of water rights disputes, but now wells were being contaminated by too many septic tanks. Native peoples and towns as well as agriculture were at odds but a strong tribal leader, Governor Viarreal, held a general meeting on tribal land so he could control matters - no press, no mentions of existing legal suits - then when that day's meeting was over, a welcome lunch was served to all. Seeing how the community that talked together, worked together, and ultimately benefited everyone, the author began a quarter century (to date) career of mediation.

We are told that the mediator may receive confidences by one side or other which must always be kept private. There may be co-mediators. With cross-cultural tensions, industry and poverty, ecology and toxic waste, there were plenty of disputes in the author's area. She found however that being funded by a foundation, however benign, made her suspect in the eyes of traditional people who felt their way of life was at risk. They could not move away while incomers could. Some people were concerned to know who she herself was, where her family lived, what made her so interested in other words.

The situations explained are so potentially complex that a reader may not read all the detail; focusing instead on the broader picture of sheep grazing rights in the green mountains, or water rights grievances when environmentalists tried to ensure that a river would retain rights to enough water still to make it a river. However if you are into local politics or social work, there are some firm lessons to be learned - even that the method of getting people to introduce themselves around a group table won't be the same for every meeting. Many home owners are too busy to want to take time to argue around a table, preferring to hold an entrenched position and get on with the work of survival.

The author's group of mediators developed a mission statement and set of policies for press, record keeping, responsibilities and other issues. Amazingly she says that developing these regulations took 'a gruelling two and a half years' so the message would be to start early and agree a few basics before anything more complex occurs. But then, committees are often that way. She found one person on an environmental issues committee who sat through all the discussions in 'bad faith' intending to throw water on the results and sabotage any consensus. Again, committees can be that way. Persons like this are not going to change.

Although the author's field had been natural resources disputes, she was later asked to mediate on the issue of educating tribal children. Her work with local people had made others see her as fitted to mediate in this area. She made sure to have diversity in the mediation team. Some observers were permitted at this time, including a high school student who told her elders that they looked like kids squabbling over candy. The author felt that observers might encourage posturing. She learned that historical trauma remains with many people regarding their ethnic community, making them innately suspicious of outsiders.

Looking at a community with a toxic waste pile of uranium tailings from a bankrupt company mine down the road, poisoning aquifers and blowing dust, the author shows us why intervention is needed. Yet when she was called in, the group planning a cleanup just wanted her for 'hired guns for crowd control' at meetings with the community. The agency was filled with initials, acronyms and scientific jargon. The local people pointed out that when the mine opened, they hadn't known much, hadn't known the questions to ask. Now they were better educated on the topic. Such issues are all part of the mediator's challenges.

The final part presents a summing of up lessons learned, which are related to the locations of the book but could be adapted. Anyone in this field could learn a lot. I am not giving a higher rating because at times the story seems too personal a memoir and too involved in the minutiae - which to the author, may be the point, but to an uninvolved reader, slow down the story and make us want to skip ahead to some kind of resolution. A good book to team with this one, for people keen to explore tribal and environmental issues clashing with pollution problems, would be Peter Matthiessen's 'Indian Country'.

[Gemini · Rating 4 out of 5]

You never think about mediation nor how mediators get there. The work that mediators do is often overlooked as stated in a variety of ways in this book. The amount of times that the author ended having to be in spaces that were really contentious were far too many. The things that have been done to Indigenous people is atrocity after atrocity throughout history. Showing how environmentalists & the gov't are basically the people that are an the opposite side of the table trying to garner any type of solution for the issues regarding the climate crisis w/out taking into consideration the land that Indigenous people live on is just not right or even fair. So it essentially makes it difficult for people to understand those living it day after day. One just can't compete nor have respect for those that are outsiders essentially looking in. To make matters worse is then how can you bring these people to a room where they all have different views, voices, & possible solutions w/out disrespecting anyone? We know that there are certain people who have all the power even though they shouldn't. Her story about what it takes for her to get all these people in a room & listen to each other w/ out tempers flaring is beyond hard. Then being able to, after many hours, come up w/ any kind of problem solving solutions that everyone at the table will agree on is something else. Although these are big issue topics that effect people's land, water, & homes, which need to be taken into consideration, there is also the matter of the best process to take for the plant too. There are so many lessons to be learned here about how the process came to be & whether it makes to continue in the process or not when agreements can not be made.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating to read about mediation. I've always been an advocate of really listening and understanding the other side. This book illustrates how well that works for disputes and relationships.

[Cary Neeper]

Below is my blog review and a guest review by blogger Don Neeper.
Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories From an Environmental Mediator by Lucy Moore, Island Press, Washington, 2013

Author and Mediator Lucy Moore shares her professional experiences by describing her work in New Mexico, where there was “...stress over land and water resources against a backdrop of cross-cultural tension and a high rate of poverty.” Various arguments came from several angles: Hispanic and Native American, environmental and business, state and federal agencies, and funding from the East and Midwest.

Moore believed that everyone involved needed to know who was involved, so she encouraged all to share their personal life stories. It worked very well to “...help people express themselves honestly and to ensure that others are genuinely
listening.” When she insisted on that same kind of life-sharing in another case, however, it backfired. The participants simply wanted to get down to work finding solutions.

The rules Moore formulated over her years of mediation provide a useful guideline for us all—Seek common goals and specific solutions, find enemies in common and satisfy curiosity. She asks participants to respect the privacy of the talks, to speak using the “I” word, and to refrain from personal attacks. “...trust and respect among adversaries are possible,” she says, “...once everyone is able to be honest, vulnerable, open and respectful. Then the “...logjam of warring studies and legal threats may break loose.”

For me, one of the most revealing findings in her work was the long-time residents’ view of the “entremetides—those who interfere where they don’t belong.” Environmentalists’ focus is philosophical; residents’ caring is personal. Environmentalists worry about wildlife and the planet’s future, while residents worry about losing their land tomorrow, losing it for family.

One of Moore’s observations is the need to be sensitive to issues of power as well as to differences in caring. Lawyers use legalese; scientists use data; bureaucrats raise barriers to ideas; “tribals” play history or culture cards. If problems are approached honestly and communicated immediately, mediation can work in three areas: substance, process and psychology.

With her very readable story-telling in this book, the author opens up possibilities in the world of difficult communication for all of us.

Blog 74. Common Ground on Hostile Turf
Posted on 04/01/2015 by Don Neeper
In her book, Common Ground on Hostile Turf, Lucy Moore shows that resolution of conflict depends more on the sharing of personal stories than on the facts, legal arguments, or moral claims of the parties.
Living in Santa Fe, Lucy Moore served for decades as a mediator in southwestern land, water, and waste arguments. With a profound sympathy as well as professional analysis, she offers ten cases in which the opposing parties either devised a resolution, or failed to do so, depending on whether they had trust or grew into trust by sharing personal histories, feelings, and preferences.
Although Moore’s own ten stories in this book bring the reader into empathy with land and water issues of the Southwest, the lessons are universal, lessons familiar to professionals who work with the conflicts in marriages, churches, schools, corporations, and governments. Moore shows how culture, historical events, sense of power, and personality affect negotiations. Trust and respect are possible among adversaries, but first each must come to understand the life and experiences underlying the opponent’s position. That understanding develops through each person’s telling his/her own story—how he came into the conflict, how he grew up, what children the person has, what experiences affected him most. Personal sharing creates vulnerability, and vulnerability generates trust. Trust might allow a resolution other than winning and losing..
Conclusion
Instead of focusing on victory, those who resolve conflicts must tell stories about their homes, what they treasure most, the friends they relish, their worries, and what they would like to see when they look out on the world, even for their last time. Moore didn’t say it quite that way, but I think that statement captures her message. Before we can resolve hostile turf, we must find common ground.

[Shomeret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book because I follow the science fiction author Cary Neeper on Goodreads. She was really enthusiastic about the book. I was motivated to read it because the protagonist of The Pipe Woman Chronicles Omnibus, which I reviewed on my blog, is a mediator. Author Lynne Cantwell's portrayal of a mediator caused me to become interested in real life mediators. I wanted to know about real life mediation cases and whether the results of mediations are honored by their participants. So I obtained this book from the library to find out how mediation works.

Lucy Moore's stories about her mediation cases were fascinating to me. Yet I wished that she was more committed to getting the best results for the environment rather than resolving conflict between the parties in the mediation. The compromises necessary to resolve conflict didn't always bring about any changes that would benefit the environment. This would happen when a mediation prioritizes the concerns of government and industry, but marginalizes those of environmentalists. Moore deals with the question of defining success in a mediation, but I don't think she gave enough thought to the topic due to her professional biases as a mediator. I think that the perspective of the profession is short-term. If the main stakeholders have been included, she doesn't consider whether the failure to address the concerns of other stakeholders could reflect on the success of the mediation in resolving long-term conflict on the issue.

For my complete review see http://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/20...