Natural resource conflicts are disagreements and disputes overuse, control, or access to natural resources. These conflicts occur when people have different uses for natural resources, when interests and needs are incompatible, and when user groups are not considered in policies and programs. Although conflicts over natural resources will always exist to some degree in every society and at all levels, conflict can often be managed and even resolved. If not, however, conflicts can escalate into violence, cause environmental degradation, disrupt projects and undermine livelihoods.
Collaboration and participatory natural resource management (co-management) are increasingly used, to varying degrees of success, to address natural resource conflicts. MEM Elec I is a 3 credit graduate course that provides an overview of major issues, theories, and approaches related to conflict management and collaboration in natural resources. Topics include conflict management, collaborative processes, and negotiation; tools and frameworks for analyzing conflict; and evolving management approaches to natural resource conflict including co-management and community-based management. The goal of this course is to provide a greater understanding of how to assess natural resource conflicts and their potential for collaboration or negotiation and to be exposed to various management strategies that can be integrated with collaborative components to address natural resource conflicts.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES:
After taking this course students will:
1. understand the various sources of natural resource conflict;
2. develop strategies for analyzing conflict;
3. recognize various challenges and how to address them within the collaborative process;
4. be exposed to key negotiation tools; and
5. learn about evolving management strategies within natural resource collaboration
- Teacher: Meycel Amarille