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CONCUR and CBI are pleased to announce the strengthening bond of our two organizations. Beginning in March 2012, CONCUR Principal Scott McCreary will team with CBI as a Strategic Partner. By formalizing our affiliation, CONCUR and CBI can provide comprehensive services across the nation and internationally, drawing on over 40 years of combined multi-party consensus building experience.
Bennett Brooks, based in New York City, will join CBI as a Senior Mediator and serve as a CONCUR Senior Affiliate.
CONCUR and CBI will partner on a number of marine resources projects, particularly those involving the work of National Marine Fisheries Service Take Reduction Teams. CONCUR and CBI will also jointly develop marine and coastal work, as well as collaborate on transportation, food systems, water resources, and climate adaptation projects.
“Our strong commitment to excellence in practice and to our non-partisan neutral role, and our expertise in the intersection of policy, science, and politics will only be enhanced by our increasing collaboration,” says CONCUR Principal Scott McCreary. “We are delighted to be able to engage Scott in our expanding portfolio of international development work,” says David Fairman, CBI Managing Director.
For further information, please contact: Scott McCreary, scott@concurinc.net, or Patrick Field, Managing Director at CBI, pfield@cbuilding.org.
Posted in Announcements | March 19th, 2012
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In December 2011, CONCUR was awarded a State of California Multiple Award Schedule (CMAS) contract #4-11-03-0493A through 3/31/2015, allowing state agencies to contract with us directly using our pre-approved catalog of services and prices. The CMAS contract is tied to our federal GSA MOBIS contract, which CONCUR was awarded in 2009. Both contracts enable CONCUR to be more easily contracted to provide professional facilitation services to the Government, including:
• Defining, refining, and resolving disputes, disagreements, and divergent views in environmental public policy
• Leading or facilitating group briefings and discussions, enabling focused decision-making
• Recording discussion content and related facilitation support services
• Debriefing stakeholders
• Preparing and providing draft and final reports relating to the facilitated issues
Posted in Announcements, Services | March 5th, 2012
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Building on the outcomes of the 2007 Serious Injury Technical Workshop facilitated by CONCUR, NMFS has completed the primary recommendation for distinguishing whether injuries to marine mammals incidental to commercial fishing should be considered serious or non-serious. The final Policy Directive and Procedural Directive was in effect as of January 27, 2012.
The Directives provide technical guidance for analyzing marine mammal injury reports and incorporating the results into marine mammal stock assessment reports and marine mammal conservation management regimes (e.g., Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) List of Fisheries, take reduction plans, ship speed regulations). To view the final Directives and NMFS’ response to public comments, visit: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/mmpa/policies.htm
Tags: ESA, marine, marine mammals, NOAA/NMFS
Posted in US Projects | March 1st, 2012
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In February 2012, CONCUR Principal Scott McCreary served on a Panel of Senior Mediators moderated by Steve Greenwood and John Hummel at the University of Oregon Law School. The topics addressed included the professional pathways that lead to careers in environmental mediation, emerging capacities for new practitioners, and the engagement of environmental justice issues in the context of professional work. Scott highlighted cases including review of a proposed aluminum smelter project in Trinidad and the Humboldt Watersheds Independent Scientific Review. The presentation also highlighted the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement in Seattle, Washington, a project in which CONCUR played a key strategic advising role to structure a conflict resolution process to break an eight-year impasse.
Tags: environmental justice, independent scientific review
Posted in Briefings & Presentations | February 27th, 2012
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CONCUR has been retained by the Southwest Regional Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service to convene Coastal Pelagic Species Workshop II: Considerations for Rights-Based Management in the Pacific Sardine Fishery. This two-day workshop will explore rights-based management approaches in the context of whether they have the potential to enhance social and economic sustainability in the West Coast Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery. See http://swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/sardine_wkshp/
The workshop is intended to provide participants an opportunity to learn more about RBM and delve into the diverse interests and concerns raised in the first CPS and RBM workshop held in 2010 in San Francisco.
CONCUR is working side-by-side with the NMFS to frame organizing topics and craft the agenda, facilitate workshop deliberations, and develop a meeting summary. CONCUR is also responsible for securing a venue and handling other workshop logistics.
Tags: coastal, economic analysis, fisheries, marine, NOAA/NMFS, pelagic, sustainability
Posted in US Projects | February 16th, 2012
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Our 2-day training course “Negotiating Effective Environmental Agreements” will meet Wednesday-Thursday, March 7-8 2012 at UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr campus in Berkeley, CA.
Negotiation is an increasingly important part of the day-to-day work of many professionals active in the environment, energy, natural resource management, and land use planning fields. While you or your staff may have had some exposure to negotiation, CONCUR’s training can take what may have been informal experience and take it up to the next level of professional practice, enabling you to negotiate more powerful agreements. With collaborative leadership playing a greater role in public policy, this course is timely for a wide range of professionals working across the full range of environmental and natural resource issues in planning, policy development, or site-specific projects.
“Negotiating Effective Environmental Agreements” is an intensive two-day workshop designed to meet the needs of professionals who are in a position to negotiate environmental agreements. In Course One, we show you how a process of face-to-face negotiation can augment traditional policy making with creative agreements that are better informed and more stable. During the training, participants learn the elements of mutual gains bargaining, apply them in a series of simulated disputes, and reflect on the application of these tools to everyday work situations. Participants receive a certificate of completion and MCLE credits (if applicable).
REGISTRATION AND PAYMENT INFORMATION: EARLY ENROLLMENT ENCOURAGED
To enroll in this course, please visit http://www.concurinc.com/courseone.html for more information and enrollment instructions.
The course tuition is $450 per individual until January 31, $650 afterward, and includes course materials, 2 continental breakfasts, 2 lunches, and one course dinner on Wednesday evening.
THE ENROLLMENT DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 21ST for all enrollments, so please enroll early!
Posted in Training | December 13th, 2011
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Work to replace Seattle’s aging and at-risk elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct highway with a deep-bore tunnel continues to make important progress.
Starting in November 2011, construction crews began demolishing an 1,100-foot stretch of the Alaskan Way Viaduct’s southern end – a key early milestone in the $4.2 billion project to replace the waterfront highway. Another major step occurred in October, when Hitachi Zosen Corp. of Japan signed a contract to supply the machine that will tunnel the 57.5-foot-diameter tunnel beneath downtown Seattle. “Signing this contract gets us one step closer to taking down the vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct,” said Gov. Chris Gregoire. “This state-of-the-art technology allows us to keep SR 99 – and the region’s economy – open for business during construction to replace this critical state highway.” These actions follow on the heels of both the signing this summer of the project’s Record of Decision and a public referendum in August in which voters overwhelmingly endorsed the high-profile project.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct section of State Route 99 runs from South Holgate Street south of downtown Seattle to Battery Street just north of downtown Seattle, where the Battery Street Tunnel connects the roadway to Aurora Avenue North.
CONCUR worked on the project from 2007 to 2010, with its role focused on collaborative process design, strategic planning advice and stakeholder involvement. CONCUR was part of a team that helped build broad consensus for the deep-bore tunnel alternative that helped break a years-long impasse.
For more on any of these developments and other AWV replacement-related news, see the Washington State Department of Transportation website at: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/viaduct/
Tags: alternatives analyses, AWV, economic analysis, Seattle, transportation & infrastructure, waterfront
Posted in US Projects | December 9th, 2011
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In July 2011, CONCUR facilitated a meeting of the NMFS False Killer Whale Take Reduction Team (Team) to review a proposed rule intended to reduce false killer whale bycatch in the Hawaii-based longline fleet.
The three-day meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, was focused primarily on briefing and seeking feedback from Team members on the proposed rule – a mix of regulatory and non-regulatory measures based heavily on the consensus-supported draft False Killer Whale Take Reduction Plan hammered out by the Team during a series of CONCUR-facilitated deliberations in 2010. There were, however, several deviations from the draft Plan in the Proposed Rule put forward by NMFS. The meeting marked the start of a three-month-long public comment period.
The proposed rule is intended to meet the requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) through a series of actions. Proposed regulatory measures include gear requirements, longline prohibited areas, training and certification in marine mammal handling and release, captains’ supervision of marine mammal handling and release, and posting of NMFS-approved placards on longline vessels. Included in the rule is a paired set of “triggers and consequences” to build in accountability and adaptive management as the rule is implemented. NMFS is also proposing non-regulatory measures, including research and data collection recommendations.
The 19-member negotiating team includes commercial fishing interests, local and national conservation organizations, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, researchers, biologists, and staff of the Pacific Islands Fishery Management Council and the Marine Mammal Commission.
The proposed rule (the proposed False Killer Whale Take Reduction Plan), the recommendations submitted by the False Killer Whale Take Reduction Team (the Draft False Killer Whale Take Reduction Plan), references, and other background documents are available at www.regulations.gov, or the Take Reduction Team Web site: www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/interactions/trt/falsekillerwhale.htm
CONCUR will be convening a series of workgroups in the coming months to continue fleshing out measures to implement the proposed rule.
Tags: biodiversity, bycatch, ESA, fisheries, FKWTRT, Hawaii, longline fishing, marine, marine mammals, NOAA/NMFS, Pacific, sustainability, TRTs
Posted in US Projects | November 16th, 2011
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CONCUR Senior Associate Bennett Brooks facilitated the September 2011 meeting of the National Marine Fisheries Services’ Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel, a 40-member panel that meets twice yearly in Silver Spring, Maryland, to advise the Agency on evolving fishing regulations. The Panel brings together representatives of commercial fishing, recreational fishing, conservation organizations, and scientific institutions, with deliberations focused on regulations relating to bluefin tuna, swordfish and other pelagic species. The three-day Panel meeting held September 20 to 22 centered on the following topics: alternatives for the conservation and management of Atlantic tunas, with an emphasis in particular on reducing dead discards; strategies to revitalize the swordfish fishery, including potential changes in the permitting process; a range of shark fishery management issues; and numerous updates and briefings. The Panel deliberations were followed by a focused shark catch share workshop, also facilitated by CONCUR. The workshop included detailed consideration of catch share design options from allocation and eligibility requirements, to geographic and species scope and transferability considerations. CONCUR has been facilitating the Advisory Panel since May 2010.
Tags: Atlantic, bycatch, coastal, fisheries, HMS, marine, NOAA/NMFS, sustainability
Posted in US Projects | November 15th, 2011
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Building on the outcomes of a 2007 national workshop facilitated by CONCUR, NMFS has prepared a draft national policy for distinguishing whether injuries to marine mammals incidental to commercial fishing (such as when an animal is hooked or entangled) should be considered serious or non-serious. The NMFS Draft National Policy for Distinguishing Serious From Non-Serious Injuries of Marine Mammals – published in the Federal Register on July 18, 2011 and expected to be finalized in early 2012 – will serve as the basis for analyzing marine mammal injury reports, a key input to marine mammal stock assessment reports (SAR) and ultimately in Take Reduction Plans.
NMFS convened the Serious Injury Technical Workshop in 2007 to review performance under existing processes and to gather the best available and current scientific information. Based on the results of the workshop and input from marine mammal scientists, veterinary experts and MMPA Scientific Review Groups, NMFS developed the draft Policy and Procedural Directives. These directives describe national guidance and criteria for distinguishing serious from non-serious injuries. Criteria for distinguishing between serious and non-serious injuries are spelled out for different of injury categories for large cetaceans, small cetaceans, and pinnipeds.
The original workshop report is entitled, “Differentiating Serious and Non Serious Injury of Marine Mammals - Report of the Serious Injury Technical Workshop (PDF)” 10-13 September 2007, Seattle, Washington. U.S. Dep. Commer., NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-OPR-39. 94 p.
Tags: ESA, marine, marine mammals, NOAA/NMFS
Posted in US Projects | November 15th, 2011
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