Eric Poncelet
Director and Senior Mediator
eponcelet@kearnswest.com

Eric Poncelet has over 15 years experience designing, mediating, and analyzing multistakeholder collaborative processes to address complex natural resource issues. He has led or co-facilitated more than 30 marine, water, and natural resource projects involving strategic planning, policy analysis, situation assessments, and convening, facilitating, and mediating multi-party agreement-building processes. He brings a unique combination of process, scientific, policy, and communications expertise to his work.

Eric works with a wide range of parties, including federal, state, local and tribal governments, private companies, non-governmental organizations, and the public. Past clients include NOAA Fisheries Service, the US Forest Service, the California Ocean Protection Council, California Department of Fish and Game, the US Bureau of Reclamation, CALFED Bay-Delta Program, the California State Water Resources Control Board, Santa Clara Valley Water District, and the Marin County Local Agency Formation Commission.

Eric is a director and senior mediator with Kearns & West and also directs Kearns & West’s marine resource practice. Recent marine resource facilitation projects have focused on designing and implementing a network of marine protected areas along the California coast, developing take reduction plans in the Atlantic, addressing salmon protection in California, developing fishery management plans, and identifying options for decommissioning off-shore oil and gas platforms. Recent water and land use management projects have focused on revising forest management plans, certifying urban water conservation best management practices, establishing policy recommendations for measuring urban water use, and managing stream resources at the southern end of San Francisco Bay.

Eric has developed and taught over 20 training courses to both public agencies and private companies on the topics of effective environmental negotiation, facilitation and mediation, collaborative process design, and communicating complex scientific information.

Eric is based in Kearns & West’s San Francisco office. He holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a concentration in multi-stakeholder environmental partnerships in the United States and Europe. He holds a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Arizona, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. He has published widely on the topic of environmental collaboration and dispute resolution, including the book Partnering for the Environment: Multistakeholder Collaboration in a Changing World (2004). He is a roster member of the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution.

Next | TOP of Page