Diplomacy is a form of mediation in which conflicting parties engage in dialogue, making their positions visible and debatable, thus enabling agreements to be reached. Antje Schneider applies this postulate to Haiti's socio-ecological crisis complex and development policy interventions. By using diplomacy as a pathway to understanding in the field, she is able to interpret situations of social and environmental destruction as a result of an intervention culture that imposes its interpretive claims on nature and crises unchallenged. She illustrates how this paradoxically hostile conflict pattern can be addressed through diplomacy as a tactful mediation process.