Sustainable Environmental Governance in Important Natural Environments: A U.S. - Brazil Collaboration

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this project is to solidify an important network focused on governance of natural resources. Natural resource governance entails the negotiation, monitoring and enforcement costs associated with the management of natural resources, e.g., land, forests, water, and minerals. This network will bring together scholars from academic and governmental research institutions in the United States and Brazil, and create a long-term research and educational agenda. The research will contribute both theoretically and empirically to the literature on natural resource governance. In addition it will have policy implications. The network will hold two planning meetings to develop a multi-year research and educational agenda on the governance of natural resources. The principal investigators and senior personnel on this project have extensive expertise in natural resource as well as in conducting collaborative research involving U.S and Brazilian partners. U.S. lead participants in this network include the Institutions and the Environment and Society Programs in the Institute for Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado; the Center for the Study of Conflict, Collaboration, and Creative Governance also at University of Colorado; and the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin. Brazilian lead participants include the University of São Paulo Graduate Program in Environmental Science (USP); the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA); the State University of Santa Cruz Graduate Program on Environment and Sustainable Development (UESC); and the Federal University of Maranhão Graduate Program in Social Sciences UFMA). The network brings together partners with complementary topical and geographical expertise. For example, the USP professors have expertise in diverse aspects of natural resource governance such as water management and community-based conservation in forested regions, while the other Brazilian partners are located in places where these governance issues are best studied. UESC resides in one of the world's top endangered ecosystems, the Southern Bahian Atlantic Forest, and has a strong environmental graduate program. UFMA lies in a region long known for conflict over land. The Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments project of INPA and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute are interested in developing collaborative research and education to bring together natural and social scientists to better understand forest degradation and conflicts over land in the Brazilian Amazon. The goal of the project is to harness the collective expertise to study governance across a range of natural resources.