Our Future Environment

A professor at University of Vermont’s Environmental Policy and Planning department recently sent out a call for papers on Conservation and Conflict Resolution. His overall research question is “Can cooperation over environmental factors such as water distribution, pollution control, (and) wildlife conservation lead to spillover cooperative behavior between erstwhile adversaries?” He believes, and I agree, that one path to investigate this is to see if environmental considerations trigger a necessity-based survivalist impulse at the international conflict level (he uses cooperatively managed parks at the US/Mexican border as an example).

It seems like my interests align closely with what this professor is claiming. for example:

In my American Identity and Political Culture course we are talking about immigration politics and what can happen at political and civic levels to reduce conflict and disagreement about how/or if to assimilate into American culture. At the same time, for my own growth as an environmental psychologist, I am reading about how participatory research (between the researcher and the group of interest) can create a sense of ownership and responsibility for the group and their natural environment. Also, with my research on cavers, I have found that social networks that take place in a natural, physical environment can create trust and cooperation within other aspects of cavers lives.

This professor, Saleem Ali, has published an edited volume titled Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution. I have to read it!

Filed under: observations and opinions, environmental planning on March 11th, 2008