GCRT Funding Year: 2009-2010

LENSES: Regenerative Urban Environments

Regenerative Urban Environments Research Working Group will focus on creating a guiding framework for use by communities, organizations and project teams who want to develop Living Environments, and has members spanning 9 different departments across the University. A Living Environment is a new concept and paradigm shift – the notion that built environments, neighborhoods, communities, buildings, and even manufactured objects can have a positive, symbiotic impact on the natural environment.

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Educating for Sustainability, Peace and Reconciliation: Managing the conflicts of Human Needs and Place with Finite Resoucres

Having already developed a shared understanding of how their work in different disciplines combines in their role as Advisory Board members for Colorado State’s Interdisciplinary Program in Peace and Reconciliation Studies, Bill Timpson, Louise Jennings, Nathalie Kees and Edward Brantmeier joined with Leah Sprain (Communication Studies) and Josh Goldstein (Human Dimensions of Natural Resources) to focus on Educating for Sustainability, Peace and Reconciliation: Managing the Conflicts of Human Needs and Place with Finite Resources. As a Research Working Group for the School of Global Environmental Sustainability, they wrote and field tested a number of case studies for use in classes across campus and with the general public about the threat of conflict and violence around natural resources issues and what constructive alternatives exist that support improved communication, deeper learning, critical and creative analyses, and cooperative possibilities.

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Environmental Governance Working Group

The EGWG was a multi-disciplinary community seeking to advance research on environmental governance at Colorado State University. For the purposes of this multidisciplinary project, we define environmental governance as the formal and informal institutions/policies/rules/practices that shape how humans interact with the environment at all levels of social organization. This broad working definition recognizes the variation in disciplinary approaches and specific research foci. The study of environmental governance includes—but is not limited to—research on environmental policies and management practices, community conservation programs, common property resource regimes, collaborative decision-making processes, and markets for environmental goods and services. Environmental governance research may investigate particular arrangements and/or address broader questions of authority, accountability, legitimacy, participation, and fairness and equity.

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