ENV 685b () / 2024-2025
Engaging Landholders and Communities in Conserving and Restoring Tropical Forest Landscapes
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Credits: 3
Spring 2025: M,W, 10:30-11:50, Marsh Rotunda |
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Eva Garen
Spring 2025: MW, 10:30-11:50am, Marsh Rotunda; 3 credits
Optional field trip:March or May 2025 to Panama’s Azuero Peninsula
Application: To apply to both the course and field trip, please fill out this brief Qualtrics survey. The application deadline is 5pm on Monday, December 2, 2024. Please note that the field trip is optional, so you can apply for the course even if you are not interested in attending the field component. Do not hesitate to reach out to eva.garen@yale.edu with any questions.
This course teaches students to think critically about the socio-cultural and political complexities of tropical forest landscapes. It emphasizes the importance of engaging landholders and communities in sustainable land management strategies, as well as the complexities involved in this process. Drawing on theory and frameworks from the social sciences, the course guides practitioner interventions and incorporates the applied experiences of the Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI),a Center, Program & Initiative (CPI) of YSE focused on capacity development in tropical forest landscapes. Students will learn from ELTI team members and a global network of collaborators about their experiences working with landholders and communities in diverse contexts. The course includes a project component that connects students with ELTI-trained practitioners to support the development of socially informed restoration interventions. Enrollment is limited to 18 students.
This year’s optional field trip to ELTI’s training landscape in Panama’s Azuero Peninsula offers students a unique opportunity to explore the socio-cultural and ecological complexities of a tropical dry forest ecosystem dominated by conventional cattle ranching. Over seven days, students will learn firsthand about ELTI’s capacity development model for smallholder cattle ranchers, focusing on the design, implementation, and monitoring of various on-farm restoration strategies. Students will learn directly from ELTI team members about their experiences engaging ranchers in the region, as well as from several of the ranchers themselves during visits to a network of model farms they established and manage with ELTI’s support. Participation in this optional field trip is limited to 12 students from the 18 enrolled in the seminar.