Environmental Conservation

EC 802 - Ecological Values and Ethics
Credits: 4.00
Deeper more fundamental philosophical questions, including spiritual values questions, are being asked concerning the ecological/environmental challenge of our time; its causes and resolution. Aspects of this challenge--environmental education, energy, food, agriculture, and natural resources--analyzed with ethics and values approaches. Students develop ways of responding to problems identification and resolution. Prereq: permission.

EC 803 - Applied American Environmental Philosophy
Credits: 4.00
Applying the philosophical theory underlying environmental studies and approaches to environmental conservation. Students conduct critiques of extensive readings and write papers, creatively analyzing aspects of selected philosophical works. Major research manuscript required.

EC 818 - Law of Natural Resources and Environment
Credits: 3.00
For resource managers: the legal system pertaining to resource management, protection of the environment, and possibilities for future action. Prereq: contemporary conservation issues, land-use economics, or equivalent.

EC 820 - International Environmental Politics and Policies for the 21st Century
Credits: 4.00
Examine policies for managing human activities to sustain the health of regional ecosystems and planetary life-support systems. Focus on selected problems of the international commons (e.g., oceans, marine resources, atmosphere, migratory species); global and regional carrying capacity (e.g., population, resource consumption), internationally shared ecosystems (e.g., transboundary watersheds and waterbodies, tropical forests); and the relevant international institutions and politics for policy formation, conflict resolution, and implementation. Using a policy analytic-framework, students develop case studies to assess international policies and institutional arrangements to achieve the objectives of Agenda 21--The Earth Summit Strategy to Save the Planet. Prereq: permission.

EC 824 - Resolving Environmental Conflicts
Credits: 3.00
Theories and practices of environmental dispute settlement. Roles of public, non-governmental organizations and government assessed. Effectiveness of public participation initiatives in influencing public policy decisions and/or resolving environmental conflicts examined. Alternative approaches to consensus (policy dialogues, joint problem solving; strategic planning; negotiation, mediation) as well as litigation examined. Specific cases critiqued and evaluated; conflict resolution skills developed. Prereq: permission.

EC 840 - Bioregional Geography
Credits: 4.00
Bioregional Geography explores the ideas of the bioregional perspective, a holistic approach to nature/society interactions based on the premise of a bioregion - a regional landscape, intergrating ecological functions with cultural, economic and political systems, such that the human systems are considered as part of landscape - scale ecosystems. Permission.

EC 884 - Sustainable Living
Credits: 3.00
Concepts of living within ecosystem limits explored in a learning-community format. The importance of human communication, sense of place and time, and health and longevity of our human species and natural systems emphasized. Examination of governance, education, economic, agricultural, and ethical systems while asking, "What makes one system more or less sustainable than another?" to lead to directions for sustainable society. Field trips and small research projects conducted. Special fee.

EC 885 - Systems Thinking for Sustainable Living
Credits: 3.00
Introduction to systems thinking from a sustainable living perspective. The course is a collaborative inquiry using a problem-solving approach. After studying different types of systems and learning a variety of tools useful in system analysis, we ask, "In what ways can systems thinking be employed to understand and begin to resolve the complex problems that face us as we move toward living within the limits of natural systems?" Prereq: sustainable living or permission.