HWCC Conflict Training

Conservation and Conflict: An Experiential Training in the Skills, Theory and Process Conservation Professionals Need to Better Analyze and Address Conflict

Dates: June 1-3 and September 9-11, 2009

Location: Defenders of Wildlife, Washington, DC

Trainers: Brian McQuinn and Francine Madden

Registration Deadlines: One month in advance of the trainings.

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In addition to regularly scheduled Washington, DC-based trainings, this course can be customized for your organization’s staff, conducted as a short course for students, or conducted in situ as a conflict intervention organized around a specific conservation conflict. For additional information on how HWCC can customize this training for you, for fee schedules, and other inquiries, please contact Francine Madden: fmmaddencomcast.net or 1-202-986-0067

Course Overview

The Conservation and Conflict Experiential Training is a must for any conservation professional who deals with conflict between people and wildlife or between people about wildlife. As we know, human-wildlife conflict is often less a conflict between humans and wildlife, and more a conflict between humans about wildlife. This means that in order to be more successful, conservation professionals need to become more proficient at analyzing and addressing conflict on every level. Moreover, many wildlife issues at the center of conversation conflicts often serve as symbols for other conflicts that do not involve conservation directly, like struggles for group recognition, identity, and status.

The objective of this course is to improve the ability of conservation practitioners to understand conflict dynamics and establish more effective ways to address them. Participants will accomplish this by drawing on tools, processes, and theory developed in the field of conflict resolution that have shown to be applicable to conservation realities. As a result, conservation practitioners will possess a broader set of skills to ensure that conservation solutions are more successful and sustainable.

Course Objectives

At the conclusion of this three-day training, participants should be able to:

Explain the principles and theory behind effective conflict resolution processes and the role of neutral facilitation in conflict prevention and mitigation efforts
Better understand conflict dynamics after applying different conflict analysis models
Understand the role of identity in conflict and how our values and beliefs impact our experience of conflict
Strategize about different types of processes for addressing conflict in conservation
Design and initiate processes to address conflict between individuals and among stakeholders
Better understand our reactions to conflict and develop strategies for more effective responses to conflict