In April 2014, we conducted a 3-day course in Negotiating and Facilitating Effective Environmental Agreements for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Fisheries Office (GARFO).
This course was specifically tailored for GARFO professionals who support marine resource collaborative processes in a variety of ways – by providing scientific expertise, communicating rulings to the public, managing and mobilizing resources, and monitoring and implementing collaborative solutions. This course provided a sequence of negotiation and facilitation skills, which were reinforced in increasingly complex role-play simulations. We prepared several new teaching simulations for the course and wrote a multi-party multi-issue simulation that addresses conflicts faced by NMFS staff. CONCUR also led a clinic for staff to raise and problem solve current NMFS issues.