Watch the event highlights here.
Conflicts frequently arise over environmental issues such as land use, natural resource management, and laws and regulation, emerging from diverging interests and values among stakeholders.
Events including the Amazon Basin, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and Japan's plan to release Fukushima water into the Pacific have triggered confrontations and conflicts in regional and global communities.
Managing Environmental Conflict by Joshua Fisher, a research scientist at Columbia Climate School, is a primer on the causes of and solutions to such conflicts. The book provides a foundational overview of the theory and practice of collaborative approaches to managing environmental disputes.
In a webinar co-hosted by Columbia Global Centers | Beijing and Columbia University Press in celebration of World Environment Day, Fisher talked about his new book with Ling Chen, Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy & Management at Tsinghua University, and Dong Guo, Associate Director of the Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management at Columbia University.
"Every day, we are bombarded by stories of conflict, polarization, and the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss; however, there are countless examples of people coming together to solve problems constructively and collaboratively manage their environments—both built environments and natural systems," said Fisher.