Dakota Access Pipeline Conflict Resolution

Background

This case started years ago back in 2014, there are a few recent highlights that I want to guide you to go through to understand the dynamics of this conflict.

At the end of 2016, a protest against DAPL got attacked by tear gas and which escalated the conflict, and in the same year, the Members of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued in Federal District Court to stop construction and won an early victory under the Obama administration. But things changed in 2017 after President Trump took office, he approved the pipeline to continue to build and use. Oil was flowing through the pipeline in the same year. A few years after that, due to several times of oil spills and intensive protests, the pipeline got shutdown by Judge James Boasberg in 2020, and this year, the Army Corps of Engineers decided not to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline as they continue a second environmental review of it.

• In late November of 2016, a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) escalated when law enforcement used tear gas and hosed down demonstrators who were against the DAPL infringing on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s territory.
• Members of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued in 2016 in Federal District Court in Washington to stop construction and won an early victory under the Obama administration when the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would seek alternative routes.
• Four days after President Trump took office in 2017, he signed an executive memorandum directing the corps “to review and approve in an expedited manner” the pipeline.
• Oil was flowing through the pipeline by June 2017.
• The Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil route from North Dakota to Illinois that has inspired intense protests and legal battles, must shut down pending an environmental review and be emptied of oil by Aug. 5, 2020.
• On April 9, the Army Corps of Engineers decided not to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline as they continue a second environmental review of it. However, Judge James Boasberg, who has shut down the pipeline before, is waiting before making his decision on injunctions.

Fundamental Research

Conflict Map

When considering the conflict and conflict map, one discrepancy of interest between the two parties stood out; ETP wanted to progress their business and capitalize while the Tribe wanted to preserve their identity. The desire to preserve one’s history involves judgments of value and culture. Keeping that history alive is all about personal needs, fears, and wants, and the options the Sioux Tribe considered to preserve the identity they felt was their birth-right. Meanwhile, as a private enterprise, ETP also had its needs, such as its responsibility to the shareholders; as well as fears, such as, preserving the value of the stock, cultivating investors, and maintaining a steady cash flow while growing. In this particular case, their interests stood in direct contradiction to the ones of the Sioux tribe. Hence why conflict took place.

Issues and goals

Gain a deeper understanding of the problem you are trying to solve by analyzing the factors that influence the development of the event and listing and specific plans/goals.

Conflict Analysis

Conflict Perspective Analysis

I used the Conflict Perspective Analysis tool to figure out something like the facts, the motivations, and the options of each actor.

Needs-Fears Mapping

And used the Needs-Fears Map to understand each party’s needs, fears, and options, which helped me to know better about the reason behind their positions and decisions.

Data Analysis

In my analysis, expect collecting data, facts, finding theories (which I used “ fear and power”), as you can clearly see from the table, I listed 4 methodologies to guide me to answer some of the research questions as well as to analyze the conflict by trying different methods and eventually I used Narrative Research, which helped me to understand the impact of the conflict at the micro-level; by examining the stories of the members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as well as the local residents of the impacted area.

The goal of this narrative is to gain a greater understanding of the impact of those who were “forgotten” as the story of the conflict grew. For example, I found that the growing elderly population in the Lake Oahe area got impacted by the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through the told stories, which inspired me to think more about the influence that the pipeline brings to individual’s daily lives in that area which is hard for us to see by analyzing the project in general.

Intervention Strategy

Intervention strategy 1

To figure out those questions and needs, I designed my intervention strategies based on the research above. So first, I set the goals to establish more objective communication bridges and resource channels, as well as find more future possibilities for our potential resolutions, by using scenario thinking.

This intervention method can capture a range of future possibilities. It offers a deeper understanding of the situation which can be used to inform our strategy and improve our ability to make better decisions today and in the future. We wanted to be more well prepared for the potential crisis of this pipeline conflict by analyzing the future possibilities.

---- Scenario thinking

Scenarios are stories about how the future might unfold for our organizations, our issues, our communities, and even our world. Importantly, scenarios are not predictions. Rather, they are provocative and plausible stories about diverse ways in which relevant issues outside our immediate communities and organizations might evolve and interact, such as the future political environment, social attitudes, regulation, and the strength of the economy.—— The Change Handbook

Intervention strategy 2

SOAR is an innovative, strength-based approach to strategic planning and invites the whole system (stakeholders) into the process. I want both residents and ETP members to hold discussions separately in their groups to identify four areas to explore: the benefits of the pipelines to them, their daily lives’ needs, the harm the pipeline project brings to their lives and to the environment, and how much they want to compromise in what areas. After they created the values and visions through the meetings, I hope we can find engagement, and Strengths and opportunities developed into meaningful aspirations.

---- SOAR

SOAR is an innovative, strength-based approach to strategic planning and invites the whole system (stakeholders) into the process. This approach integrates Appreciative Inquiry (AI) with a strategic planning framework to create a transformational process that inspires organizations to SOAR. —— The Change Handbook

Intervention strategy 3

And then I want to put them (the representatives or leaders) together to hold community summits to come together to discuss the concerns from their own group. And hopefully, we can build the bridge in the most effective way. The biggest challenge is the willingness of local residents to participate and ETP's willingness to compromise.

---- Community Summits

A Community Summit is a 15-hour planning meeting for a broad spectrum of stakeholders, defined by a focus issue, who come together to agree on a specific course of action. They are our intervention of choice when a vision for a desirable future is already in place (or latent) and the work that needs to be done is the targeted allocation of limited resources in the most effective way. —— The Change Handbook

Networking & Sustainability

Monitoring & Evaluation

After I learned to build the network map and found that there are several clear small networking groups and common networks connecting local residents and ETP. This is a very helpful discovery because it extends the monitoring and evaluation plan that I thought about before. It is not difficult to find that media and local employees hired by ETP are the most important common networks, and they are also important points for connecting external networks.

By using this resource, I hope to be able to form a supervision team, this team consists of three parts ---- local residents, ETP employees (including the leaders), and the media.

Each group selects 3 representatives and one of them is the main speaker of each meeting, assuming the responsibility of collecting public opinions and expressing needs on behalf of their own organizations. And the media group can be composed of a reporter who follows the report and two publicly elected citizen volunteers who are concerned about the DAPL project.

Supervision group

• This group consists of three parts, namely local residents, ETP employees (including the leadership) and the media.
• Each group selects 3 representatives and one of them is the main speaker of each meeting, assuming the responsibility of collecting public opinions and expressing needs on behalf of their own organizations.

Network Map

Sustainability

In order to implement this plan smoothly and maintain its sustainability, I understand that there are many challenges, such as it is hard to meet both needs at the same time; the oil spills and the irresponsible attitude of ETP make local residents more dissatisfied, etc. But based on Krebs and Holley’s article -- network weaving, I thought we should bring this idea of ego-networks to eco-networks conversion into the discussion. eco-networks system can help to build an ecosystem, strengthen fairness and public participation, which inspired me by the idea of how to make the resources flow into the community. This means we need to use the profits and benefits that we got from the pipeline project to maintain the local environment, preserve the local tribe’s history, and perhaps to use this media platform to promote aboriginal culture (such as building museums, attracting tourist visits, etc.) to help them bring long-term benefits. After helping to prevent the local environment and culture, DAPL can run more smoothly and achieve the purpose of resource transfer.

Challenge

• Conflict of interests. ETP wanted to progress their business and capitalize while the Tribe wanted to preserve their identity.
• Hard to meet both needs at the same time.
• Oil spill. It's had more accidents harming people or the environment than any other operator in the last five years.
• Conflict about whether to stop using the pipeline.
• Ensure the objectivity and fairness of the members of the supervision team.

Counterfactual

Last but not least, I want to show you the counterfactual, there are so many possibilities in the future that are very unpredictable, but by dividing them into possible, probable, and preferable scenarios, we can more easily see the direction that our intervention will lead to.

We assessed each case of peace implementation by these measures and then further subjected the cases to an informal, counterfactual analysis about the specific contribution of the implementers to the result. —— Implementing Peace Agreementsin Civil Wars

Copyright

Project cover picture by Chameleon Horse art & design

https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/some-quick-responses-to-us-army-corps-of-engineers-halting-dapl-construction/