S.C. Gillette | Geology Reports

USGS2017

Core competencies for natural resource negotiation

Natural resource negotiation often involves multiple parties with overlapping interests and issues that can provide opportunities for mutually beneficial solutions. These opportunities can be missed, however, if negotiators are unable to comprehend the facts of a negotiation, understand the interests of other parties, or accurately evaluate the options that increase the size of the negotiation pie. Through structured personal interviews with more than 60 representatives from seven different hydropower negotiations, respondents identified core competencies that help negotiators succeed at accurately comprehending the facts of a negotiation, comprehending the interests of other parties, and fully understanding the available options and alternatives. We categorized those core competencies into three dimensions of negotiation - interpersonal, organizational, and operational.

Environmental Practice↗

USGS2007

Informing the network: Improving communication with interface communities during wildland fire

An interagency research team studied fire communications that took place during different stages of two wildfires in southern California: one small fire of short duration and one large fire of long duration. This "quick- response" research showed that pre-fire communication planning was particularly effective for smaller fire events and parts of that planning proved invaluable for the large fire event as well. Information seeking by the affected public relied on locally convenient sources during the small fire. During the large fire, widespread evacuations disrupted many of the local informal communication networks. Residents' needs were for "real-time, " place-specific information: precise location, severity, size, and direction of spread of the fires. Fire management agencies must contribute real-time, place-specific fire information when it is most needed by the affected public, as they try to make sense out of the chaos of a wildland fire. Disseminating fire information as broadly as possible through multiple pathways will maximize the probability of the public finding the information they need. ?? Society for Human Ecology.

Human Ecology Review↗