Developing diverse pathways to Environmental Stewardship, a study of the U.S. Environmental Movement

Program Dates: May 10 to June 21, 2009

Funded by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the United States Institute on the Environment (USIE) is organized by the East-West Center in collaboration with over twenty other organizations. Key partners include the University of Hawaii’s Environmental Center, Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Nature Conservancy.  Twenty undergraduate scholars from Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji and Papua New Guinea will attend the six-week institute.  The first four weeks of the Institute are conducted in Oahu and Maui, Hawaii. The fifth week is conducted in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas in collaboration with Stanford University. The final week takes place in Washington, D.C.

Through involvement in the Institute, participants will achieve an understanding of the environmental movement in the United States. They will do so by engaging advocacy, market, policy, cultural and scientific approaches to environmental issues and seeing how these approaches are intertwined in the quest for developing sustainable pathways to environmental stewardship.  The Institute embraces the diversity of actors (from regulators to activists and businesses) involved in the broadly defined environmental movement. It also captures the dynamic nature of the challenges at hand and the need for active leadership to deal with these challenges.

The Institute is focused on leadership training through diversity. A key strength of diversity is that it can yield benefits for developing the types of new understandings and novel problem solving approaches which most environmental challenges require. Participants from diverse backgrounds will experience a mixture of pedagogic techniques introducing a variety of strategies for environmental stewardship and will meet a wide range of Americans working in the field.

The outcomes of the Institute include: 1) a transformative learning experience for participants through introductions to a broad spectrum of American life; 2) enhanced networks of understanding that link participants with U.S. environmental actors, and each other; 3) transfer, where applicable, of lessons from the U.S. experience to their home countries; 4) opportunities for U.S. practitioners to learn about challenges facing participant’s home countries; 5) the emergence of the next generation of leaders in Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands’ environmental movement with links to the U.S.; and 6) development of collaborative projects among participants themselves and with U.S. organizations.

Documents

List of Participants 

Bios and Photos of Participants

Weekly Program

Sample Final Reports (Wong) (Jamil)

Press Clips

"Young Environmental Leaders from SE Asia Study U.S. Environmental Movement"          
(Honolulu Advertiser, May 29, 2009)

Press Release (U.S. Embassy, Papua New Guinea, May 7, 2009)

"Seven Islanders off to the States" (Fiji Daily News, April 17, 2009)

"A Green Passion" (The Star Online, Malaysia, April 12, 2009)

"New Environmental Stewardship Program Cultivates Action-Oriented Leaders" (East-West Center News, July 2009)

USIE Staff