Department of Community Sustainability The Guyer-Seevers Program in Natural Resource Conservation

Environmental and Natural Resource Governance Fellows Program

About the program

The Environmental and Natural Resource Governance Fellows Program was created in response to Michigan’s 2009 Environmental Advisory Council recommendation that Michigan State University and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality partner to initiate and foster statewide conversations about ways to improve environmental and natural resource governance in Michigan.

The public and our elected leaders are asking more of policy as we face increasingly difficult problems. New types of problems will require new and different knowledge and new and different policy responses. Yet, in the presence of increasingly complex and intractable problems, future environmental and natural resource management in Michigan will be undertaken with increasingly limited financial resources.  As a result, our traditional approach to public responsibility for environmental and natural resource management will no longer be sufficient or appropriate. A new model of governance will be necessary. But what that new model should be is not clear.

The fellows program brought together thought leaders from around the state, representing state and local government, non-profit organizations, the private sector and citizen-led initiatives for a series of seven workshops designed to initiate the critical conversation about changes in governance. The fellows explored opportunities for broadening participation in conversations about governance and for broadening participation in governance. The fellows deliberated the context for changes in governance and identified key assumptions about, opportunities for and barriers to change.

The deliberations and outcomes of the seven workshops are captured in a report entitled “Critical Conversations about Environmental and Natural Resource Governance.” 

Report

Critical Conversations about Environmental and Natural Resource Governance
Edited by Patricia E. Norris and Jan Urban-Lurain

Sponsors

• The Gordon and Norma Guyer and Gary L. Seevers Chair in Natural Resource Conservation
• The Elton R. Smith Chair in Food and Agricultural Policy
• The Sustainable Michigan Endowed Project (SMEP)

For more information

If you have questions about the Environmental and Natural Resource Governance Fellows Program, please contact Patricia Norris.