Professor Lasse Peltonen has seen the causes and consequences of environmental conflicts both as a researcher and as a mediator. The roles are different, but both are needed to understand conflicts and to find solutions to them.
Lasse Peltonen, Doctor of Administrative Sciences, will start as a permanent Professor of Environmental Conflict Resolution at the University of Eastern Finland on 1 June 2021. He has a long experience in research addressing conflicts, as well as in mediating them. There is an increasing need for mediation, but not every quarrel meets the definition of an environmental conflict.
“In a conflict, one party obstructs or interferes with the goals of another, but not all tensions and debates are a conflict. In a conflict, the parties are taking deliberate action against one another. A conflict is a visible dispute with deliberate actions such legal proceedings and public expressions of discontent, and it can even lead all the way to war and violence,” Peltonen explains.
Environmental conflicts often involve complexity, several parties, legal regulation, ethical values and even disinformation. Professor Peltonen’s job description hints at the possibility that environmental conflicts can be resolved, but is this possible, especially if they are complex?
Peltonen acknowledges that the concept of conflict resolution, implying that conflicts can be resolved once and for all, sometimes seems impossible, considering the diversity of conflicts. Conflict resolution is perhaps more easily understandable through the concept of governance, referring to diverse ways of responding to societal challenges, which go beyond the scope of public administration and are multilateral.
A conflict engulfs all the parties involved and the situation may seem chaotic, but a conflict researcher sees patterns and different stages.
“Environmental conflicts progress in cycles of escalation and de-escalation: first, the parties realise that their objectives aren’t aligned, and something triggers and escalates the situation. This is followed by attempts to gain control and resolve the conflict. We can talk about episodes of conflict; outbursts that are fuelled by certain circumstances. The root causes of a conflict can keep individual disputes going, and they provide a different perspective to outbursts.”
Even today, environmental conflicts are bursting out all over the world, and their causes are rooted deep in social inequality.
“Unequal social structures are linked to the use, governance and ownership of natural resources. They cause conflicts and, in a worst-case scenario, civil wars. In a broader picture, resolving conflicts is not only about putting out isolated fires or negotiating or mediating; instead, institutions associated with the rule of law are an important part of the structures of conflict transformation. Here in Finland, our environmental conflicts luckily aren’t violent ones.”
In a broader picture, resolving conflicts is not only about putting out isolated fires or negotiating or mediating; instead, institutions associated with the rule of law are an important part of the structures of conflict transformation.
Lasse Peltonen
Professor of Environmental Conflict Resolution
Environmental policy student becomes a researcher and an entrepreneur
Understanding and investigating complex environmental conflicts requires a multidisciplinary approach. Conflict resolution could use, among other things, the understanding of social psychologists, lawyers and economists, as well as knowledge of game theory.
Peltonen’s own background is in environmental policy. He obtained his Doctor of Administrative Sciences degree from the University of Tampere in 2003. The doctoral dissertation focused on the conflict-driven emergence of environmental policy in Tampere from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Since then, Peltonen has been involved in social scientific environmental research, including urban and regional studies He has participated in a number of research and development projects dealing, among other things, with adaptation to climate change, disputes over urban planning and neighbourhood relations, and conflicts related to mining projects.
Peltonen is also actively involved in the work of Akordi, a consultancy company which acts as a neutral mediator in difficult and controversial environmental planning and decision-making processes. He's one of the company’s two founding members.
Peltonen’s time as a visiting researcher in the United States in 2012–2013 was a key stimulus for setting up his own company. During the visit, he familiarised himself with conflict resolution practices and with the activities of the Consensus Building Institute, among other things.
“I learned about consensus building methods in the US. I saw how multilateral conflict situations are approached there. The US has a long history of developing interesting, alternative dispute resolution methods, for example, to avoid costly legal proceedings.”
In particular, Peltonen is interested in an interest-based negotiation theory approach, in other words, how to build acceptable solutions that stem from the parties’ needs and interests instead of bargaining between demands and pregiven positions during the negotiations.
Research-based knowledge for impact assessment
Peltonen has experience in mediating environmental conflicts, but he emphasises the difference between the roles of a researcher and a mediator.
A researcher is not a mediator. A conflict researcher can help to understand conflicts and their backgrounds, and approaches to dealing with conflict processes. However, environmental research and environmental researchers, too, can play an important role in conflict resolution when reliable, up-to date information on the impacts of different options is needed to inform the negotiations. Researchers can model changes in land use or water resources, and make the parties understand the consequences of land use change in a given area.
Peltonen currently leads the CORE project funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. The project examines and develops collaborative approaches that anticipate and prevent conflict when tackling environmental decision-making challenges. He also leads a project examining the current state and opportunities of mediation in Finland, which is funded by the Government’s analysis and research activities. The project will provide a national overview of the various practices of mediation, such as mediation in criminal and civil matters, workplace mediation and peer mediation in schools. The aim is also to set a course for mediation of environmental conflicts in the future.
Lasse Peltonen
- Professor of Environmental Conflict Resolution, University of Eastern Finland, 1 June 2021–.
- Doctor of Administrative Sciences (Environmental Policy), University of Tampere, 2003.
Key roles
- Professor of Environmental Conflict Resolution (fixed term), University of Eastern Finland, 2016–.
- Founder and Board Chair, Akordi Oy, 2013–.
- Visiting Researcher, Tufts University, United States, 2012–2013.
- Senior Researcher, University of Eastern Finland, 2012–2013.
- Senior Researcher and Research Coordinator, Finnish Environment Institute, 2011–2015.
- Research Director, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki University of Technology and Aalto University, 2008–2011.
