On June 8 University of Michigan students and faculty will meet with state and local stakeholders to kick off an innovative project intended to evaluate options for establishing sustainable eco-tourism in northeast Michigan. The Northeast Michigan Integrated Assessment project, coordinated by the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments and the Michigan Sea Grant program, is the largest collaborative effort of its kind in the state, according to Don Scavia, professor and associate dean of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment.
Bomb craters, vacant lots, refugee camps, trenches, wastelands, dumps, cracks in the sidewalk: these are the unlikely locales of what landscape architect Kenneth Helphand calls "defiant gardens."
"They are gardens created in extreme environmental, social, political, cultural or economic conditions," he told an audience filling the Michigan Theater screening room February 16. "They are acts of adaptation to their challenging circumstances, but they can also be viewed as affirmations of human resilience."
It was like deja vu all over again as Alan D. Hecht, Ph.D., Office of Research and Development with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency visited the University of Michigan in early January to deliver a cautionary tale about the importance of sustainability to the global environment. Hecht was back in town recently (as he was 15 years ago to commemorate the EPA's 35th anniversary) to refresh the message as the EPA turns 50 years old.
The immune system of the Great Lakes is breaking down and the ecosystem is in danger of collapse, according to a new report released today by the region’s leading scientists. The report underscores the urgent need for comprehensive restoration to repair the “immune system” of the Great Lakes, and to reverse a pattern of decline that threatens to affect drinking water, swimming, fishing, tourism and other benefits derived from the largest body of fresh water in the world. “This report serves as a warning,” said Alfred Beeton, Ph.D., one of the lead authors and former director of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. “The Great Lakes are deteriorating at a rate unprecedented in their recorded history and are nearing the tipping point of ecosystem-wide breakdown. If we want to restore this resource, it is time to act now.”
The University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment is the only graduate environmental school in the nation to combine natural science, social science and design into one shared research and educational enterprise. Nine faculty members representing multiple disciplines are hosting five symposia that address distinct and complex facets of sustainability science.
Jan L. McAlpine, a leading U.S. government advisor, policy maker, negotiator and facilitator on international issues, has assumed a new role at the University of Michigan to contribute to and learn about collaborative research and education on environmental sustainability. The 17-year government-service veteran, currently on a one-year sabbatical from the U.S. Department of State, is serving as a senior research fellow with Natural Resources and Environment and the first visiting scholar at the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.
Majora Carter, the founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, a grassroots organization dedicated to urban revitalization in the nation's poorest community, will be the featured speaker on Jan. 15 at the School of Natural Resources and Environment during its annual observance of Martin Luther King Day. The environmental-justice activist and MacArthur Fellow will deliver her formal remarks, "Environmental Justice: Civil Rights for the 21st Century," at 5 p.m. in room 1040 of the Dana Building. The event is cosponsored by the School of Natural Resources and Environment, the School of Social Work, and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts
Teachers in Michigan, the Great Lakes region and beyond recognize the importance of educating the next generation on the value of the Great Lakes, including its fishery resources. As a result, a comprehensive new collection of education tools and resources for K-12 educators in the Great Lakes region is now available through the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN).