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SPECIAL
ISSUE:
"BUILDING COAST-SMART
COMMUNITIES"
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IN THE
ZONE is a service
from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources'
Chesapeake & Coastal Program (CCP) that delivers
timely information, tools and resources to those living
and working in Maryland's coastal
zone. |
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On April 27, 2009, the Maryland Chesapeake
& Coastal Program (CCP) will host an interactive
summit, "Building
Coast-Smart Communities: How Will Maryland Adapt to
Climate Change?" as an integral
part of the implementation of Maryland's Climate Action
Plan. This event is designed to provide an
excellent opportunity to get the hands-on experience
that will help participants as they move forward to
address the challenges presented by climate change.
Importantly, it will create a network of community
leaders who can replicate the simulation process in
their own community while coordinating and learning from
other Maryland coastal communities. Through this
simulated negotiation, participants will:
- Witness firsthand how diverse community
stakeholders can negotiate agreements to address the
challenge of climate change coastal impacts.
- Quickly learn more about the choices communities
face as they adapt to new risks.
- Learn new negotiating skills, and practice them in
a safe environment.
- Gain knowledge about other community stakeholders'
viewpoints and concerns.
Maryland's CCP has a
ten-year history of providing planning assistance and
technical tools to help the state and local communities
understand, and adapt to sea level rise and coastal
hazards. Recognizing that planning for sea level rise is
a complex task involving various public and private
sectors, Maryland's CCP has partnered with the MIT-USGS
Science Impact Collaborative (MUSIC) and the Consensus
Building Institute (CBI) to help Maryland coastal
communities become "Coast-Smart" - ready,
adaptive and resilient to climate change.
The "Building Coast-Smart Communities"
interactive summit will bring together hundreds of key
coastal leaders for a half-day event to engage in the
difficult real-life discussions and decisions facing
coastal communities that are vulnerable to sea level
rise, coastal erosion, and storm inundation. This
role-play simulation will be based on a hypothetical
Maryland community that reflects the reality of many of
our coastal towns and cities. Participants will work
through a set of actions on a "Coast-Smart Community"
scorecard that ranks each action's effectiveness and
cost. Another partner for this event, Maryland's
Meditation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO), has
volunteered the services of their professional
negotiators to facilitate the discussion at each
table. This summit is a free event, but
registration is required. For more information, please
visit the event website at: http://maryland.coastsmart.org.
Click here
to view the press release. If you have questions about
the event, send an email to info@coastsmart.org
or call Gwen Shaughnessy with the Chesapeake &
Coastal Program at
410.260.8743. | |
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 WHAT
PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT "BUILDING COAST-SMART
COMMUNITIES"
"Here in Maryland we are
aggressively implementing initiatives to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions that will provide benefits long
into the future; however, we must also ensure our
communities are "Coast-Smart" now -- ready, adaptive and
resilient."
(Click here
to view full press release)
--
Governor Martin
O'Malley
"Solving
tough challenges like sea level rise will mean engaging
each other across the artificial boundaries that so
often separate us. The Coast-Smart simulation promises
to provide a stage where we can practice
that."
-- Jack Greer, Assistant
Director for Public Affairs, Maryland Sea
Grant
"This
is a powerful interactive tool that has the potential to
build the capacity of local communities to prepare for
both climate risk and the opportunity of smart
growth."
-- Brice Gamber, Vice
Chair, Coastal Watershed Resources Advisory Committee
(CWRAC), Retired Insurance Executive
"Participants will gain a
deeper understanding of the complex relationships
between stakeholders in a coastal planning project,
better preparing them to discuss similar issues in their
own communities."
-- Ann Wheeler,
Librarian, Carter Library and Information Resource
Center, Maryland Department of Natural
Resources
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MEET OUR COAST-SMART
PARTNERS
The Chesapeake &
Coastal Program invites you to get better acquainted
with the impressive credentials and accomplishments of
its partners in this interactive summit.
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PARTNER
SPOTLIGHT: MUSIC
For
society to manage complex ecosystems effectively,
including handling both the sudden and cumulative
impacts of climate change, the integration of
science-based knowledge with political and socioeconomic
considerations is essential. To address this critical
need, the U.S. Geological
Survey and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
established the MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative
(MUSIC) to test new ways of incorporating science in
environmental decision making. MUSIC advocates adaptive
management, "joint fact finding", and collaboration in
resource management. Science Impact Coordinators coming
from this program are equipped to tackle complex
environmental problems by forging collaborative
solutions that work.
Four MUSIC
interns are admitted each year to MIT's two-year
Master's degree program. Each student participates in
coursework in adaptive management and "coordination
science" including conflict resolution and collaborative
policy analysis. We have been fortunate to have interns
Nathan Lemphers and Evan Thomas Paul as our Science
Impact Coordinators working on the "Building Coast-Smart
Communities" project. For backgrounds
on Nathan and Evan, visit:
http://web.mit.edu/dusp/epp/music/about/internbios.html.
In
addition to MUSIC's role in developing the collaborative
simulation process and toolkit for building
"coast-smart" communities in Maryland, their work
has included:
- Addressing
the challenge of climate change through strategic
habitat conservation in the Everglades;
- Assessing
ecosystem sustainability and vulnerability to climate
change in the Lower
Mississippi
Valley;
- Guidance
tools for planning and management of urban drainage
systems under a changing climate;
- Building
adaptive capacity in nearshore ecosystems in
Maine;
- Adaptive
strategies to achieve sustainable energy in the dace
of changing climate through the use of offshore wind
farms.
The
Science Impact Coordinators, with guidance from MIT
faculty and agency staff, produce action memos and other
products suggesting ways in which joint fact finding and
collaborative processes can be used to meet agency
objectives. To learn more about other projects of the
MIT-USGS Collaborative, please visit: http://web.mit.edu/dusp/epp/music/. |
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MEET
PROFESSOR LAWRENCE SUSSKIND
Lawrence Susskind
is Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served
on the faculty for 35 years and currently directs the
Graduate Program in Environmental Policy and Planning.
He is also Vice-Chair for Instruction at the Program on
Negotiation at Harvard Law School, which he helped found
in 1982, and where he heads the MIT-Harvard Public
Disputes Program, and teaches advanced negotiation
courses. In 1993, Professor Susskind created the
Consensus Building Institute.
Professor Susskind
is one of the country's most experienced public and
environmental dispute mediators and a leading figure in
the dispute resolution field. He has mediated more than
50 disputes, including land use conflicts, facility
siting controversies, public policy disagreements, and
confrontations over water. He has served as a
court-appointed special master and helped facilitate
negotiations on arrangements of global environmental
treaties. He offers a range of executive training
programs each year and has served as guest lecturer at
more than two-dozen universities around the
world.
To learn more about Professor Lawrence
Susskind and his work with MUSIC and CBI, please visit:
http://www.cbuilding.org/about/bio/lawrence-susskind.
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PARTNER
SPOTLIGHT:
CONSENSUS
BUILDING INSTITUTE (CBI)
For 15 years, the Consensus
Building Institute (CBI) has helped groups and
organizations around the world collaborate more
effectively. CBI uses proven principles, processes, and
techniques that improve group decision-making on complex
public and organizational issues. CBI helps leaders,
communities, organizations, and governments find better
ways to work together offering in-depth knowledge of
group dynamics, multiparty negotiations, and
intercultural interaction. Created by leading
practitioners and theory builders in the fields of
negotiation and dispute resolution, CBI uses mediation,
facilitation, and a range of specialized tools we have
developed to promote effective negotiations, build
consensus, and resolve conflicts.CBI professionals
engage diverse stakeholders and assist them to identify
shared goals, manage conflicts, and build productive
working relationships in which participants achieve
their goals and more.
CBI is a non-profit
organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and
Washington D.C. For more information about CBI, their
current projects and accomplishments, please visit:
www.cbuilding.org.
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MEET
DAVID PLUMB
David
Plumb is a Senior Associate at the Consensus Building
Institute. David designs and facilitates stakeholder
engagement strategies in complex public policy and
natural resource disputes. He facilitates difficult
conversations and meetings for a variety of
organizations and has worked in a wide range of
environments in the U.S. and abroad where community,
government and corporate interests have collided,
including Nigeria's Niger Delta, Angola, Mexico,
Guatemala and Argentina. David also designs and delivers
trainings in stakeholder engagement, consensus building,
negotiation and conflict resolution.
Prior to
joining CBI, David was director of the Sustainable
Business Practice at Search for Common Ground, a world
leader in conflict resolution. The practice assisted
corporations and their stakeholders to find common
ground and create sustainable relationships. Currently
based in Washington D.C., David is a former financial
journalist and correspondent. A Fulbright Scholar, David
holds a BA in Politics and Latin American Studies from
Princeton University.
To learn more about David
Plumb and his work at CBI, please visit: http://www.cbuilding.org/about/bio/david-plumb.
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PARTNER
SPOTLIGHT: MEDITATION AND CONFLICT
RESOLUTION OFFICE (MACRO)
The Maryland Mediation and
Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) is a state office of
dispute resolution created and chaired by the Honorable
Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals,
Maryland's highest appellate court. Judge Bell is a
nationally recognized champion of advancing appropriate
conflict resolution in the courts as well as in the
community. MACRO serves as a dispute resolution resource
for the state, contributing to the development of a
society where people routinely resolve their own
disputes, amicably and creatively.
MACRO
has played a major role in stimulating dramatic
increases in the number and quality of Alternative
dispute resolution (ADR) programs in Maryland. ADR is an
umbrella term for processes that resolve conflicts
peacefully and promote creative win-win solutions. ADR
processes include: mediation, community conferencing,
arbitration, settlement conferences, early neutral case
evaluation, and consensus building. ADR is increasingly
being used by courts, communities, schools, government
agencies, criminal and juvenile justice programs,
businesses, and other organizations across the country.
Maryland
has won national acclaim for its multi-faceted approach
to ADR as well as for the Maryland Judiciary's leading
role in helping to prevent disputes from reaching a
stage at which court intervention is necessary. To learn
more about MACRO's current work and accomplishments,
visit: http://www.courts.state.md.us/macro/index.html. | |
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Please feel free to contact us with any comments,
questions or ideas for future
IN THE ZONE e-mails.
Sincerely,
Your Chesapeake & Coastal Program
Team
Maryland Department of Natural
Resources |
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A publication of the
Maryland Coastal Zone Management Program pursuant to National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Award
No.NA08NOS4190469. This publication is funded (in part) by a
grant/cooperative agreement from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The views expressed herein
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the
views of NOAA or any of its
sub-agencies.
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