Environmental Justice and Conservation

Conservation, Environmental Justice, and Resource Rights: Tensions and Overlaps

Welcome to the Information Page for the workshop- Conservation, Environmental Justice, and Resource Rights: Tensions and Overlaps. Registration for the workshop has reached capacity and is now closed.

Workshop Description: This workshop is dedicated to exploring the overlaps and tensions between conservation, environmental justice, and resource rights politics in international, comparative perspective. Some of the issues we hope to address include: tensions between conservation-based resource enclosures and customary resource use; similarities and differences between mobilizing around environmental justice and around resource rights; the class character of conservation in the U.S. and elsewhere; the kinds of collective affiliations (race, ethnicity, class, gender) that crystallize through environmental justice and resource rights politics; at what scale different natural resource commons are envisioned and how this influences conservation, environmental justice, and resource rights politics; when and where environmentalism challenges the privatization of resources; and the social and institutional complex of resource management.

This day-long workshop is brought to you by the Environmental Leadership Program and its Greater Boston Regional Network, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Harvard University’s Political Ecology Working Group, and the Switzer Foundation.
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Location & Directions: The workshop will take place at Harvard's William James Hall Room 1 (33 Kirkland St. Cambridge, MA 02138). Please note that Panel IIA will take place at the Harvard Center for the Environment's Seminar Room, located at 24 Oxford St., 3rd floor.

From the Subway: Take the T to Harvard Square Station. Get out of the main exit onto Massachusetts Avenue. You will see the Harvard campus across the street from the Au Bon Pain. Cross over into the campus and walk diagonally across to the exit for the Science Center. Walk to diagonally right past the Science Center to the corner of Oxford and Kirkland Streets. Take a right on Kirkland Street and walk past the first light at the intersection with Quincy Street. William James Hall is the big white building just past the intersection on the right.

Taxi from Airport: Tell the driver to get to Harvard Square via JFK Street. Take Mass Ave from JFK Street and go right under the overpass with Harvard Yard on your right Stay in the left lane as you go under the overpass. Take a left at the first light on Quincy Street. Take a right on Kirkland Street and stop. William James Hall is the big white bldg across the street.
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Agenda for Saturday, October 21, 2006:

8:00 am -Coffee & Bagels

8:30 am –Introduction

8:45 am –Panel I: Scale, Environmentalism, and Activism
Round table discussion of how the perceived scale of a resource commons - e.g. water as a regional commons, land as a local commons, or air as a global commons -- shapes conservation and mobilization over resource rights.

Panel I Speakers:
Julian Agyeman, Tufts University, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning
Dustin Mulvaney, UC Santa Cruz Department of Environmental Studies, Switzer Fellow
Ajantha Subramanian, Harvard University Department of Anthropology, ELP Greater Boston Associate

9:45 am -Break

10:00 am –Panel II Option a: Water Policy and Politics
Possible topics include: the establishment of marine parks; urban and rural struggles over water rights; territorial, technological, and resource conflicts within marine fisheries; efforts to establish or recuperate marine and riverine commons; dam construction; joint management of water resources.

Panel II Option a Speakers:
Melissa Bailey, Tufts University, Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, ELP Greater Boston Associate
Steven Caton, Harvard University Department of Anthropology
Will Day, Harvard University Department of Anthropology
Sarah Robinson, Harvard University Department of Anthropology
Chris Walley, MIT Department of Anthropology

Or

10:00 am –Panel II Option b: Land Policy and Politics
Possible topics include: expropriation of land for conservation projects such as the establishment of national parks; conservation forestry; tensions and overlaps between land conservation and indigenous rights; the territorial dimensions of struggles for land rights; joint management of forest and land resources; industrial agriculture and labor.

Panel II Option b Speakers:
Eunice Blavascunas, UC Santa Cruz Department of Anthropology, Switzer Fellow
Jim Igoe, University of Colorado at Denver Department of Anthropology, ELP Senior Fellow
Kristen Walker Painemilla, Indigenous and Traditional Peoples' Initiative, Conservation International, ELP Senior Fellow
Juno Parrenas, Harvard University Department of Anthropology
Lukas Rieppel, Harvard University, History of Science Department

11:30 am –Lunch

1:00 pm –Panel III: Industrial Pollution/Alternative Development
Possible topics include: industrial accidents and their social, biological, and political repercussions; the health and environmental costs of industrial production; organizing around alternative technology and energy.

Panel III Speakers:
Ana Baptista, Rutgers University, School of Planning and Public Policy, ELP Senior Fellow
Janna Cohen-Rosenthal, Mass Energy Consumers Alliance, ELP Greater Boston Associate
Bridget Hanna, Harvard University Department of Anthropology
Elke Hodson, MIT Department of Atmospheric Chemistry, ELP Greater Boston Associate
Jonathan Lewis, Clean Air Task Force, ELP Greater Boston Associate
Ami Zota, Harvard University School of Public Health, ELP Senior Fellow

2:30 pm -Break

2:45 pm –Panel IV: Environmental Justice/Urban Resource Rights
Possible topics include: struggles over urban housing, water, transportation, clean air, and green space with a focus on the Greater Boston region

Panel IV Speakers:
Saulo Araújo, Grassroots International, ELP Greater Boston Associate
Sonya Garcia, Chelsea Green Space Collaborative
Dounte Ruelas, Chelsea Green Space Collaborative
Edna Rivera-Carrasco, Committee for Boston Public Housing, Inc., ELP Greater Boston Associate
Kristen Wyman, Island Alliance, ELP Greater Boston Associate, with...

Tatiana Grant, Senior, John D. O'Bryant School of Math and Science,4th year BEAN Intern
Sentidra Joseph, Senior, East Boston High School, 4th year BEAN Intern
Stephony Reeves, Senior, John D. O'Bryant School of Math and Science,2nd year BEAN Intern

4:30 pm -Tea

5:00 pm –Panel V: Towards Bridging Biodiversity and Racial, Class, and Institutional Diversity
Round table discussion of existing and potential collaborations among conservation, environmental justice, and resource rights organizations/movements.

Panel V Speakers:
Cristina Balboa, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, ELP Senior Fellow
Marcelo Bonta, Conservation, Diversity, Partnership, and Outreach Consultant, ELP Senior Fellow
Sabrina McCormick, Michigan State University Department of Sociology, ELP Senior Fellow
Fiona Rotberg, Environmental Security Project, Silk Road Studies Program, Uppsala University, Sweden, Switzer Fellow
Carmelo Ruiz, Claridad Newspaper, Puerto Rico, ELP Senior Fellow
Bill Wood, Latin American Anthropology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, ELP Senior Fellow

7:00 pm --Reception

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Registration! The workshop's registration has reached capacity and is now closed. For more information, please call 617.755.6719.

Workshop Location Address:
Harvard University
William James Hall 1
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

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