Centers and Programs at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Teaching, research, and outreach at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies are greatly enhanced by the Centers and Programs, which have been initiated by faculty through the years. The Centers and Programs, each with a different concentration, are a key component of a student’s learning experience. They allow students to gain hands-on clinical and research experience by sponsoring student internships and projects, coordinating faculty research in areas of common interest, and creating symposia, conferences, newsletters, and outreach programs.

Centers and Programs are funded primarily through private foundations, nongovernmental organizations, state and federal agencies, international granting agencies, and private corporations. The nature and number of Centers and Programs evolve over time, reflecting faculty and student interest. Under the current organizational structure, each program falls under the umbrella of a center, which enables further collaboration and resource sharing.

Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems

Coastal and watershed systems are an integral part of the environment and an essential aspect of a holistic approach to environmental studies. The mission of the Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems is to incorporate interdisciplinary study of watersheds and adjacent coastal waters into academic life at Yale.

The small fraction of the earth’s surface occupied by the land-sea margin is enormously important to the environment and to society. A majority of the world’s population inhabits watersheds located within fifty miles of the coast, making these complex, fragile ecosystems especially vulnerable to human impact. The near-shore region includes some of the most unusual and diverse ecosystems, from salt marshes and coral reefs to mangrove forests and river deltas. The coastal zone supports the world’s richest fisheries and sustains significant recreational industries. The growing recognition of the importance and value of coastal and water resources has found expression in an increasing emphasis on public and private research programs.

The Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems promotes interdisciplinary studies and the education of professionals in the management of the special resources of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the coastal region. Because ecological and social structure and function are inextricably linked, neither can be adequately comprehended nor effectively managed in isolation. The center emphasizes studies that help us elucidate the complex, poorly understood, but crucial ways in which human and biophysical systems shape each other. Several courses are available to students with an interest in coastal and watershed issues. In addition to courses in the regular listing, the center sponsors courses and lectures in marine conservation.

School faculty and students conduct physical, biological, and social research in local watersheds and educational outreach programs for the community. Three coastal watersheds in south central Connecticut—the Quinnipiac, Mill, and West rivers—are often the focus of long-term faculty and student research. The work of the center on these watersheds includes community planning for habitat restoration of degraded urban rivers, studies of nonpoint source pollution, and research on the relation between watershed environmental health and human community performance and effectiveness.

The center’s office houses a growing library of reference materials, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data, and computers dedicated to student project use. The summer training modules incorporate training in watershed field measurement techniques. In partnership with the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program, the center provides internships for students working on coastal restoration, preservation, and community outreach projects.

Recent student projects in the center include a survey of vegetation loss in the Quinnipiac River tidal marsh; a comparative assessment of mercury levels in urban and suburban streams; a sediment quality investigation as part of a dam removal study; and using a rapid assessment method to evaluate salt marshes.

Urban Watershed Program

The Urban Watershed Program promotes faculty and student research on the unique relationships, impacts, and demands of watersheds in urban areas. Jointly administered by the Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems and the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, the program combines the interests and resources of the two centers.

Watersheds in urban areas encounter unique stresses, while sharing common characteristics and following natural laws of all water systems. Urban watersheds are often polluted, heavily engineered, inaccessible, and little understood by nearby residents; population density exacerbates stresses on waterways.

As cities emerge from a period when they ignored their rivers and harbors, new relationships are being developed with adjacent waterways. Past practices that marginalized waterscapes from the urban environment are being reevaluated. Now, with more attention to urban environmental quality, there is a greater understanding of the vital role waterways play as sources of open space, transportation, recreation, and habitat.

The Urban Watershed Program promotes the interdisciplinary science and policy studies of these waterways. A convenient study site is offered in the greater New Haven area through the established relationships of the Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems and the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology.

Coastal Field Station

A research facility is available to the Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies at the Peabody Museum Field Station on the Long Island Sound in Guilford. The station provides central access to one of the country’s most important estuaries.

Center for Environmental Law & Policy

A joint undertaking with Yale Law School, the Center for Environmental Law and Policy seeks to advance fresh thinking and analytically rigorous approaches to environmental decision making—across disciplines, sectors, and boundaries.

The center supports a wide-ranging program of teaching, research, and outreach focused on local, regional, national, and global pollution control and natural resource management issues. These efforts involve faculty, staff, and student collaboration aimed at shaping both academic thinking and policy making in the public, private, and NGO sectors. The center is currently focused on four program areas, as listed below.

Environmental Governance

This program considers the way that people relate to the environment, what values they bring to bear, and what issues, words, and language connect to them. Projects under this program area include the Yale Environmental Poll and Climate Change Resonance.

Business, Economics, and Environment

This program seeks to explore the nexus of business and the environment. The goal of this work is threefold: (1) to integrate environment into corporate practices; (2) to help develop the requisite strategy for environment-related enterprises; and (3) to encourage environmental organizations and policy makers to adopt better management principles in support of environmental goals. This work is being conducted in conjunction with the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale. Projects under this program area include Corporate Environmental Strategy and Private International Finance and the Environment.

Data-Driven Decision Making

This program aims to shift environmental policy making onto firmer analytic foundations using indicators and statistics. The primary output of this work is the Environmental Performance Index, which gauges environmental policy results at the national scale. Environmental Performance Measurement is the primary project under this program area.

The center also coordinates an environmental protection “clinic” that undertakes long-term projects for clients (environmental groups, government agencies, community organizations, and private sector enterprises) staffed by interdisciplinary teams of law and environmental studies students.

For detailed information on the Center for Environmental Law and Policy, please visit www.yale.edu/envirocenter.

Center for Business and the Environment at Yale

A collaboration between the School of Management (SOM) and the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale (CBEY) hosts the longest-standing M.B.A.-Environment degree program in the world. This three-year professional degree seeks to “prepare environmental leaders for business and society to solve the problems that matter.” The focus of CBEY is to enhance student learning experiences, connect students and faculty to leading practitioners, and to deepen our understanding of the business-environment interface.

CBEY gets involved in a number of initiatives focused on research, education, and outreach including the organization of speaker series, management of real world consulting projects, supporting cutting edge faculty research, and creating new courses.

Faculty and students involved in the center work in five core areas:

Environmental Finance and Economics
Market Framework and Governance
Corporate Strategy and Governance
Industrial Ecology
Investments in Land and Ecosystems

Activities in each of these areas bring together students, faculty, staff, policy experts, and practitioners from a wide-range of institutions around the world. The work in each of these areas is frequently focused on one or more of five environmental concentrations including:

Climate Change
Clean Energy
Forest Ecosystems and Management
Land Conservation
Water

For more information about CBEY, go to www.yale.edu/cbey

Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale

The Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale seeks to advance the design, discovery, development, and implementation of products, processes, and systems that are more sustainable for humans and the biosphere. Through the Principles of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, scientists, engineers, and policy makers at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, the Department of Chemistry, and the Department of Chemical Engineering are engaged to develop the next generation of science, technology, and policy that can meet environmental and economic goals simultaneously.

The center includes various research groups that conduct basic and applied research on a wide range of technical topics. The research foci of the center include:

A heuristic framework for the design of safer chemicals
Engineering systems that are inherently resilient
Appropriate and sustainable technologies for the developing world
Energy systems that are non-deleting and non-polluting
Material transformations that are atom economical and non-toxic
Valuation of “green” corporate behavior

Specifically, researchers associated with the center are looking at water purification technologies that do not rely on toxic disinfection agents, new bio-based polymers that are degradable and do not require toxic additives, new carbon-free energy technologies, chemical synthesis that reduce or eliminate hazardous reagents and waste, new solvent systems for cleaning that are more benign for humans and the environment, and shareholder value of green marketing and behavior. The center is actively engaged in research and implementation both domestically and abroad including field sites along the US-Mexico border and in Africa.

In addition to basic research, the center also seeks to catalyze the implementation of these sustainable technologies by:

Working directly with companies and industrial sectors: pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, electronics, chemicals.
Developing policies at the state and federal level that will advance the practice of green chemistry and green engineering. Some of the states where the center has engaged include Michigan, California, Texas, and Connecticut.

The center also seeks to communicate the results of its work to the broader community outside of Yale, has developed a multi-media Web presence, and conducts conferences and symposia in the U.S. and around the world in China, Japan, Africa, India, and New Zealand.

Center for Industrial Ecology

The Center for Industrial Ecology (CIE) is dedicated to the promotion of research, teaching, and outreach in industrial ecology. The field is focused on the concept that an industrial system should be viewed not in isolation from its surrounding systems, but in concert with them. It is a systems approach that seeks to optimize the total materials cycle from virgin material, to finished material, to component, to product, to obsolete product, and to ultimate disposal. The field is sometimes termed “the science and technology of sustainability.”

Among the programs and goals of the center are the following:

Conducting path-breaking research in industrial ecology
Hosting of visiting national and international scholars in industrial ecology
Master’s, doctoral, and postdoctoral study programs in industrial ecology

Major foci include (1) the Stocks and Flows Project, in which investigators are evaluating current and historical flows of specific materials, estimating the stocks available in different types of reservoirs, and evaluating the environmental implications; (2) the Industrial Symbiosis Project, in which multi-year research is being conducted primarily in Puerto Rico to establish the environmental and economic rationale for intra-industry exchange of materials, water, and energy; and (3) outreach and training focused on the environmental opportunities and challenges from the enormous expansion of Asian industrial activity with the aim of institutionalizing the understanding and use of industrial ecology in Asia.

Other research projects include (a) evaluation of the environmental consequences on a life-cycle basis of industrial production based on biologically sourced raw materials and residuals; (b) development of quantitative goals or targets for sustainability; and (c) evaluation of extended producer responsibility (EPR), including investigation of how, when, and why cities and other local government units might adopt EPR.

Journal of Industrial Ecology

CIE is home to a highly regarded international journal. Published by Wiley-Blackwell and owned by Yale University, the Journal of Industrial Ecology is a peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary bimonthly on industry and the environment that is aimed at both researchers and practitioners in academe, industry, government, and advocacy organizations. It is indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (ISI) and it is the official journal of the International Society for Industrial Ecology.

Industrial Environmental Management Program

The Industrial Environmental Management (IEM) program at Yale aims to equip students with an integrated set of skills with which to tackle the complex, multifaceted environmental problems facing industrial and corporate managers. Within the master’s program, IEM students take courses in natural science, social science, and quantitative methods, followed by courses in environmental policy and management. The core intellectual framework for IEM is industrial ecology.

An active Industrial Environmental Management Student Interest Group sponsors field trips to industrial sites, on-campus talks by visiting managers, and symposia on current topics of interest. In addition, each year the IEM Spring Lecture Series hosts speakers from industry who give presentations and meet with students.

Program on Solid Waste Policy

The program has two principal goals: (1) to inform contemporary policy discussions about solid waste and materials management by applying the methods and findings of social and environmental science; and (2) to develop workable policy solutions that address the impediments to safe, cost-effective solid waste management and the complexities of comprehensive materials and life-cycle management.

Hixon Center for Urban Ecology

The Hixon Center for Urban Ecology provides an interdisciplinary forum for scholars and practitioners to work collaboratively on integrated research, teaching, and outreach to improve our understanding and management of urban environmental resources within the United States and around the globe.

The ecological health and integrity of urban ecosystems have a profound impact on urban economic productivity and quality of life. Pioneering research, new theoretical understanding, and innovative practice will be required to provide the knowledge and tools necessary to foster healthy natural systems essential for the future well-being of the modern city. This need has never been greater than today, when a majority of the world’s population either resides in or is rapidly migrating to urban areas.

To accomplish its mission, the center builds upon and strengthens the work of several programs at the School, including the Urban Resources Initiative, the Program for Restorative Environmental Design, and the Urban Watershed Program.

The Hixon Center has a strong focus on collaboration within the School, across the University, and beyond. The center sponsors both lecture series and conferences as a means to disseminate ideas and information concerning the critical issues confronting urban ecosystems and related research required for the foreseeable future.

The Hixon Center also supports Yale faculty scholarly research or initiatives focusing on aspects of environmental science, conservation, policy, or management in an urban context. In addition, the center supports student internships based upon their research proposal’s connection to current Hixon Center research, the outreach potential of that research, and its relevance to the continued study of urban ecology. The center will continue to build the urban environmental focus at Yale while strengthening the School’s urban dimension, creating new models and approaches for addressing urban environmental changes.

Yale Program on Strategies for the Future of Conservation

The purpose of the Yale Program on Strategies for the Future of Conservation is to support the efforts of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Land Trust Alliance, and similar private organizations to develop and apply new, innovative strategies for land conservation by linking the convening, research, and teaching activities at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies ever more closely to the needs of the land conservation community.

Established by a gift from Forrest Berkley and Marcie Tyre, the program has two parts:

Sponsoring student internships and research projects (through the Berkley Conservation Scholars program), to bring the passion, experience and creativity of Yale graduate students to bear on these issues; and
Convening workshops and other conversations across sectors and perspectives in the search for new approaches to expanding the resources applied to land conservation in the United States.

Berkley Conservation Scholars are students of high potential who receive funding for their research and professional experiences at the cutting edge of land conservation. Support is available during both the school year and the summer, creating a virtual “R&D Department” for the U.S. land conservation community. Berkley Conservation Scholars play a critical role in helping to bring together practitioners and academics in the search for new conservation tools.

The Program on Strategies for the Future of Conservation is a major extension of F&ES’s continuing efforts to enhance the effectiveness of land conservation. Working with an advisory group of land conservation leaders, the program hosts workshops, training programs, and other activities around the themes of engaging new communities in conservation; expanding the conservation toolkit; and ensuring the permanence of conservation gains.

Urban Resources Initiative

The Urban Resources Initiative (URI) is a not-for-profit/university partnership dedicated to community participation in urban ecosystem management. A substantial body of learning suggests that sustainable urban ecosystem management depends on the meaningful participation of local residents. Those who know local conditions and whose daily actions influence the health and quality of urban ecosystems must play a central role in designing and implementing rehabilitation strategies. Sustainable natural resource management and conservation cannot be achieved by technical, scientific solutions alone. Conservation efforts, especially in urban areas where people represent a significant element of the ecosystem, must emphasize social revitalization alongside environmental restoration.

Yale’s URI program draws on these essential elements to facilitate community participation in urban ecosystem management. “Community” is defined quite broadly: it includes the group of neighborhood leaders with whom interns work to restore abandoned lands near their homes. Community is a group of fifth graders at an inner-city elementary school who are learning how to assess the environmental attributes of their neighborhood. Community is the staff and leadership of city agencies who have the responsibility and resources to become the environmental stewards of their city. URI’s approach responds to and engages all of these communities.

URI offers a number of clinical learning opportunities that allow F&ES students to gain real-world practice in their field. Listening to local concerns and developing environmental programs in cooperation with schools, neighborhood groups, and city agencies are the cornerstones of our work. Through these programs F&ES students can apply theory learned in the classroom with supervised clinical training to enrich their academic work while making a real contribution to the New Haven community. These programs include the Community Greenspace program, Open Spaces as Learning Places environmental education program, research opportunities, and training in urban forestry practices.

Community Greenspace Each summer, F&ES students work as community foresters as part of the Community Greenspace program, a city-wide initiative to revitalize New Haven’s neighborhoods by restoring vacant lots, planting street trees and front yards, and building community. Each intern works with community groups to develop restoration goals and design an implementation strategy for the summer. The interns help neighbors conduct an inventory of existing trees, select and prepare sites for new plantings, and plant perennials, shrubs, and trees.

The Greenspace program focuses especially on vacant lots, which pose a current and future threat to the quality of life in New Haven. As in many northeastern and midwestern industrialized cities in the United States, these patches of urban land—each typically less than one acre, but together making up hundreds of acres across urban neighborhoods—create great gaps in the landscape: sinkholes where environmental, economic, and community potential is wasted. URI looks to the local experts—the people who live in inner-city neighborhoods—as partners in defining and then assessing, designing, implementing, and sustaining urban restoration sites.

Environmental education Since 1991, URI education interns have taught hands-on environmental education programs to New Haven public school students. Our current environmental education initiative, Open Spaces as Learning Places, teaches elementary school students about environmental stewardship through the exploration of six open space sites in their communities. Topics range from forest succession and food webs to watersheds and plate tectonics. Field components of the program include an exploration of the students’ schoolyard, a visit to a local community greenspace, hiking through East or West Rock Park, a canoe trip on one of New Haven’s three rivers, a study of aquatic life at Lake Wintergreen, and a geologic inquiry at the historic Grove Street Cemetery. In the Open Spaces program, students learn environmental stewardship through experiencing the work of their neighbors—and conversely residents are encouraged to continue to build open spaces as they see their neighborhood children enjoying and learning science from their hard work.

Research The URI programmatic activities in environmental education and urban community forestry create rich research opportunities. For example, using data from the Community Greenspace sites, F&ES student Alexis Dinno initiated a community survey to determine the human health impacts of vacant land. Adrian Camacho investigated differences in biological communities found in different urban locations, using Greenspace sites for comparison against abandoned lots. Another Yale F&ES student, Lianne Fisman, researched how childrens’ play behavior is affected by the design of schoolyards.

Urban forestry practices Over the past decade, URI has created several community and urban forestry training programs, including natural resource managers’ training sessions (for municipal employees), a tree steward training program (for community leaders), and a street tree inventory training project (targeting local residents). These programs have created powerful learning experiences for Yale F&ES students as well as for the target audience. Students gain expertise in developing and implementing training programs across a broad spectrum of topics and audiences and work with and learn from experienced mentors from F&ES and local, state, and federal forestry agencies.

Tropical Resources Institute

The mission of the Tropical Resources Institute is to provide a forum to support and connect the initiatives of the Yale community in developing applied research, partnerships, and programs in the tropics. We support projects that aim to develop practical solutions to issues relating to conservation and management of tropical resources.

TRI was created in 1983 to strengthen the School’s involvement in the management of tropical resources. The institute recognizes that the problems surrounding the management of tropical resources are rapidly increasing in complexity, while demands on those resources are expanding exponentially. Emerging structures of global environmental governance and local conflicts over land use and environmental conservation require new strategies and leaders able to function across diversity of disciplines and sectors, and at local and global scales. TRI aims to build linkages across natural and social sciences and among government agencies, academia, and practitioners, enabling the formation of successful partnerships and collaborations among researchers, activists, and governments. TRI seeks to train students to be leaders in this new era, leveraging resources, knowledge, and expertise among governments, scientists, NGOs, and communities to provide the information and tools this new generation will require to equitably address the challenges ahead.

TRI serves as the nexus within the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies through which faculty and students conduct interdisciplinary research and outreach activities throughout the tropics. Through the institute’s long-term presence in particular locations, TRI serves as a focal point for collaboration with local and international organizations to address particularly important and complex environmental challenges, and extends the School’s educational and training activities to local partners.

Research

TRI administers an endowed fellowship program that supports more than thirty graduate students conducting research in the tropics each year; administers structured long-term research sites to address issues of environmental restoration, protected areas and watershed management, environmental policy and governance, forest fragmentation, community rights to natural resources, and biodiversity conservation in Panama, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia; and supports faculty research in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Education

TRI provides mentoring and training to graduate students in research design, proposal writing, and field methods; sponsors faculty-led courses, workshops, round table discussions, and guest speakers; and trains practitioners through its presence overseas.

With a grant from the Class of 1980, TRI has established a documentary video editing center. Documentary films provide a powerful medium by which students can communicate their research to a wide audience. Students who are interested can combine independent research projects with the production of a documentary video.

Outreach

TRI maintains memoranda of understanding and collaborative research partnerships with more than three dozen leading tropical research and education institutions worldwide, sponsors open public lecture series, assists educational institutions in tropical nations with natural resources curriculum development, cosponsors an annual conference with the International Society of Tropical Foresters, helps publish conference proceedings and assessments of tropical resource issues in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Bulletin Series and the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, and hosts an institute Web site (www.yale.edu/tri). In 2004 TRI became a voting member of the World Conservation Congress.

Publications

TRI publishes Tropical Resources: The Bulletin of the Tropical Resources Institute, an annual journal of student research, and the Agroforestry in Landscape Mosaics Working Paper Series, which publishes the results of collaborative research between TRI and the World Agroforestry Centre.

The Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative

In April 2006 the Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI) was launched, thanks to a generous grant donated by Arcadia to TRI. For the execution of the project, F&ES has partnered with the Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. The mission of the program is to enhance environmental management and leadership capacity in the tropics by offering cutting-edge learning and networking opportunities aimed at improving biodiversity conservation and human welfare. Through complementary, applied, action-oriented training and leadership building activities, ELTI aims to serve as a platform to promote and affect on-the-ground biodiversity conservation efforts.

ELTI was created to significantly strengthen biodiversity conservation in tropical forest regions, specifically in Latin America and South and Southeast Asia, by offering short-term courses, workshops, conferences, and symposiums for policy makers and conservation practitioners in these regions. Additionally through this program, ELTI will work on fostering professional development through post-training event opportunities for participants, enabling them to further strengthen their understanding of particular conservation issues and their capacity to address specific environmental threats or concerns. ELTI involves faculty, staff, and students from F&ES, in addition to research scientists from STRI, in various aspects of the program.

The Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry

Since its founding in 1900, the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has been in the forefront in developing a science-based approach to forest management and in training leaders to face their generation’s challenges to sustaining forests.

The School’s Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry continues this tradition, in its mission to integrate, strengthen, and redirect the School’s forestry research, education, and outreach to address the needs of the twenty-first century and a globalized environment. The Global Institute fosters leadership through dialogue and innovative programs, creates and tests new tools and methods, and conducts research to support sustainable forest management worldwide.

Forestry at Yale is broadly defined to include all aspects of forest management and conservation. The Global Institute works primarily through faculty-led programs, and partnerships with other Yale centers and forestry institutions in the United States and abroad. Students participate as research assistants, interns, and School Forests field crew; are encouraged to take on high levels of leadership in planning activities and events; and regularly contribute to published documents that emerge from program activities. An External Advisory Board, made up of international leaders in the field of forestry, provides a connection to those who are involved in the more practical aspects of protecting, restoring, and managing the world’s forests.

The institute coordinates the School’s participation in regional, national, and international forestry events such as the Society of American Foresters’ Conventions and the World Forestry Congresses and coordinates activities with other institutions throughout the world.

Research Through its research programs, the Global Institute brings world-class scholarship to bear on the challenges facing the world’s forests. Programs represent the diverse interests and expertise of the F&ES faculty, who conduct applied research in both ecological and social dimensions of forests and forestry.

Yale Forest Forum (YFF) The Yale Forest Forum (YFF) serves as the dialogue and convening function of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry. YFF was established in 1994 by a diverse group of leaders in forestry to focus national attention on broader public involvement in forest policy and management in the United States. In an attempt to articulate and communicate a common vision of forest management to diverse stakeholders, the first initiative of YFF was to convene the Seventh American Forest Congress (SAFC). After a series of local roundtables, the SAFC culminated in a 1,500-person citizens’ congress in Washington, D.C. The principles discussed during the congress remain part of YFF’s core philosophy of how forest policy discussions should take place: “collaboratively, based on the widest possible involvement of stakeholders.”

YFF’s activities are centered on bringing individuals together for open public dialogues to share experiences, explore emerging issues, and constructively debate varying opinions. In that light YFF sponsors many issues forums and leadership seminars throughout the academic year. YFF forums and seminars not only focus on emerging issues in forest management but also give students exposure to leaders in the NGO, industry, landowner, and government sectors in sustainable forestry. YFF publishes the YFF Review to disseminate to a wide audience the outcomes and lessons learned from its work.

Several times a year, the Global Institute convenes forums on significant issues in forest sustainability, with participants drawn from the widest possible range of individuals both affecting and affected by forest policies, including those working in government, business, conservation, academia, and community-based organizations. Most forums include both a formal panel presentation, open to the public, and a workshop session. They provide an opportunity for diverse interests to meet and exchange ideas, and have led to ongoing dialogue concerning forestry problems and solutions.

Integral to the work of YFF and the development of many forums is student input and assistance.

Publications Global Institute publications, along with the Web site, are the primary means of communicating the work of the institute. The YFF Review series includes summaries of forums, workshops, internships, fellowships, seminars, and conferences. Faculty and staff research on selected forest issues is disseminated through working papers and research reports. Publications are available in both print and on the Web site. The institute also houses publication of the Journal of Sustainable Forestry.

YFF leadership seminar series The Global Institute’s weekly lunchtime talks allow students and other members of the F&ES community to interact informally with individuals actively working in forestry and conservation. Speakers have included, among others, forest practitioners, forest landowners, government scientists and policy makers, community activists, authors and journalists, leaders of local, national, and international conservation organizations, academics, and business executives.

Yale F&ES courses and seminars Global Institute faculty teach a wide array of graduate courses and seminars, which explore the scientific underpinnings and policy implications of sustainable management of the world’s forests.

Mid-career short courses Weeklong courses in Forest Stand Dynamics for forestry practitioners are taught on the east coast at Yale, and on the west coast through the University of Washington. Newly offered executive short courses bring the latest thinking in sustainable forestry to business executives as well as forestry professionals. Executives Learning about Forestry and Foresters Becoming Executives are intensive one-week courses for professionals from around the world, working in the forestry sector.

Through the programs and Yale Forest Forum, the institute has undertaken several initiatives, including examination of forest fragmentation and land use change, the total cost impacts of forest wildfires, the impact of forest certification, rural community viability, tropical forest restoration, a working definition of sustainable forestry, landscape and watershed management techniques and technical tools, management of mixed hardwood forests, conservation priority setting, and forest health issues such as natural disturbance regimes and invasive species.

The Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry is governed by the dean of the School; a faculty director; an executive director; professional program staff; a group of faculty advisers, many of whom lead Institute programs; and an external advisory board. The main office and bulk of the work of the institute are housed in Marsh Hall.

Program in Tropical Forestry

The mission of the Program in Tropical Forestry is to become a world leader in research, education, information dissemination, and promotion of sustainable forest management, plantation silviculture, and restoration of degraded ecosystems throughout the tropics. The program activities are carried out by Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) faculty, in collaboration with colleagues from academic institutions in the tropics. The program is closely linked to Yale F&ES Tropical Resources Institute (TRI), sharing the overall philosophy of its mission but with a more focused approach toward tropical forestry research, education, and knowledge dissemination.

The program seeks to expand the work of Yale faculty, students, and staff by conducting research; offering relevant courses, seminars, and workshops; and promoting cooperation among faculty and students from Yale F&ES and collaborating institutions worldwide. Courses in tropical forestry, agroforestry, tropical ecology, ecosystem restoration, and silviculture are taught by faculty at F&ES. Forum and roundtable discussions are also part of the program’s information outreach.

The challenges that tropical forestry faces in the twenty-first century are very well known. In the early 1990s the total area of deforested and degraded tropical land surpassed the area of mature tropical forests. Similar trends persist in the current century. Tropical forestry is confronted with the task of finding strategies to alleviate pressure on remaining forests and techniques to enhance forest regeneration and restore abandoned lands, using productive alternatives that can be attractive to local communities. In addition, sustainable forestry in tropical countries must be supported by adequate policies to promote and maintain specific activities at local and regional scales.

Research by faculty of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry and collaborators in tropical countries includes sustainable management of natural forests and their biodiversity, and the identification and quantification of ecological services provided by forests (biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, watershed protection). The design of systems of diversified forest management also involves studies on the ecology and management of non-timber species used for medicinal, insecticidal, ornamental, craft, and construction purposes. There are also projects on reforestation of degraded lands with native species, including mixed-species designs. These systems can encourage natural regeneration in their understories, contributing to the recovery of plant and animal biodiversity of the surrounding landscape. Some of the subjects covered in this program are ecosystem restoration; management of secondary forests and enrichment planting; reforestation with native species; plantation silviculture; recovery and conservation of plant and animal biodiversity; carbon sequestration by tropical forests and plantations; recovery and protection of watershed services, including water volume and quality; and conservation and management of non-timber forest products. Research projects are currently taking place in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Program on Forest Policy and Governance

The mission of the Yale Program on Forest Policy and Governance is to document, research, teach, and conduct outreach to foster innovations in sustainable forestry management and policy. It is a core program within the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Originally called the Yale Program on Forest Certification, the program has been renamed to better reflect its broad focus on all forms of state and non-state policy and governance, from domestic forest policy to global intergovernmental negotiations, to market-based systems for promoting sustainable forest management. The program will maintain a strong focus on forest certification as one unique and potentially revolutionary policy approach that harnesses the power of the marketplace to encourage compliance with environmental and socially responsible standards.

The program focuses on three interrelated efforts:

Research designed to understand the development of state and non-state forest policies and their impacts on sustainable forestry. Our research is organized around five key themes: comparative forest policy and governance, from the local to the global level; the dynamics of legitimacy among state and non-state governance systems; the development and impacts of forest certification and other market-based instruments in developing countries; the environmental and social effects of certification; and market supply dynamics.
Teaching and training on forest governance and policy. Our teaching includes undergraduate and graduate courses on international forest policy and governance, including a comprehensive seminar on forest certification and training on how to conduct certification audits.
Outreach activities to the broader forestry community. The program hosts a number of visitors to speak at Yale, as well as attending the key certification and sustainable forest policy conferences globally.

The program is housed at 230 Prospect Street. Students have the opportunity to work as researchers and/or assist in the coordination of program activities and certification assessment training. Our office includes a comprehensive reference database of nearly 10,000 sources including seminal journal articles and historical information relating to certification programs throughout the world, which we make available to students and faculty at Yale.

For details see www.yale.edu/forestcertification.

The Forests Dialogue

The Forests Dialogue (TFD) is a group of individuals from the private sector and civil society from diverse backgrounds and regions who are committed to the conservation and sustainable use of forests. Through a shared understanding of forest issues from their own discussions, members of The Forests Dialogue work together in a spirit of teamwork, trust, and commitment. They believe that their actions and relationships can help catalyze a broader consensus on forest issues and encourage constructive, collaborative action by individual leaders that will improve the condition and value of forests.

Members of TFD participate as individuals, rather than organizational delegates, and they aim to speak for a diversity of perspectives. TFD processes and activities are transparent, complement the actions of others, and seek to advance progress by creating leadership cadres on key issues based on individuals with broader personal consensus. Currently, TFD is focusing on issues related to illegal logging, forest certification, intensive forest management, forests and poverty alleviation, conservation forestry, and identifying a vision for conservation and management of the world’s forests.

GISF hosts the secretariat of TFD. Students have the opportunity to work with the secretariat to conduct background research on issues of interest to TFD and to assist the secretariat in dialogue planning and implementation.

Program on Forest Physiology and Biotechnology

The Program on Forest Physiology and Biotechnology (PFPB) focuses primarily on the relationships of physiology, morphology, and genetics of forest plants to silviculture and sustainable forestry. The main objectives of the biotechnology initiative are to analyze ecosystem impacts of biotechnology from biological, technical, and cultural perspectives; to evaluate strategies to minimize possible deleterious effects in these several dimensions; and to organize forums for discussion of the role of genetic techniques in forest health and forest tree improvement in ways that do not represent biological hazard to the future forests of the world. The use of genetically modified trees for restoration and removal of pollutants is also a consideration.

Current research is focused around several projects, including the anatomical, physiological, and optical properties of leaves in relation to (a) light intensity and quality, (b) distribution in tree crowns, (c) nutrient status, and (d) ecology and silviculture. A goal of this work is to scale up from the leaf to the tree to the canopy and forest by interfacing reflectance and fluorescence and carbon uptake with hyperspectral data from high-resolution remote sensing. It is thought that these methods can provide reliable measurements of forest health. Ultimately, these signals may also identify distribution of species within forest canopies along with measurements of foliar function such as photosynthesis, and cellular phenotypic plasticity (for instance, cuticle thickness, epidermal properties, and palisade versus spongy mesophyll). Such evaluations can be useful in evaluating sustainability under a variety of site conditions. In conjunction with these approaches, we are cooperating on studies of the anatomy and physiology of trees in many different areas of the world (India, Panama, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica) to determine optimal habitats for native species for sustainable forestry.

Another long-term research project concerns the development and use of organic biostimulants to maintain optimum plant growth while reducing fertilizer requirements and increasing natural stress resistance with respect to water, disease, insects, and toxic substances. Graeme P. Berlyn was one of the originators of the biostimulant concept for amplifying plant growth and stress resistance. Current work involves adding beneficial microbes (or their byproducts) to the biostimulant such as mycorrhizas and organisms that inhibit pathogenesis and increase the natural resistance of the plant using chemical signaling to stimulate the production of protective compounds and protective tissues. Efforts are under way to improve the antioxidant systems (superoxide dismutase, ascorbic acid, and glutathione) in tree leaves in order to alleviate stress and increase photosynthesis. This approach is also being worked on by genetically modifying plants to increase their internal production of antioxidants. The external application offers an advantage in that it has lower initial costs and can be easily terminated if problems develop.

The program is located in the Greeley Laboratory. There are numerous opportunities for students to be involved with the research taking place through the program.

Program on Landscape Management

Forest ecosystems can be defined at a variety of scales—a stand, a landscape, a region, a continent. At all scales, they are dynamic—constantly changing from one condition to another. To manage forest ecosystems requires an understanding and appreciation of the biological, social, and economic dynamics of forest ecosystems. Past attempts to manage at the individual stand scale proved difficult, since stands exist naturally in a variety of structures and each structure provides different values. To provide all values, all structures need to be maintained by different stands across the landscape. This is the basis of the landscape approach to forest management.

The Landscape Management System (LMS) at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is a cooperative project with the University of Washington College of Forest Resources Silviculture Laboratory and the USDA Forest Service. Its purpose is to develop the scientific basis, concepts, and tools needed to help forests provide the wide range of values people want—including commodities, wildlife habitat, fire safety, employment, and carbon sequestration. These values are best provided by coordinating the dynamic changes of forests across a landscape, rather than by trying to provide each or all values continuously on a single area.

The Program on Landscape Management is housed in Greeley Laboratory. Students have a range of opportunities to work with the program, from technical development of the modeling software to field data collection and synthesis.

Program on Private Forests

The Program on Private Forests is engaged in education and research on the status and management of private forestlands, focusing on land use change dynamics, ownership trends, and demographics affecting private lands in the United States.

Growing populations and burgeoning global economies are creating increased demands for forest products and services, thereby placing intense pressures on the world’s forests. It is a considerable challenge to supply the demand for products and services while maintaining healthy, viable forests. Much of the pressure will be on private forests. For example, of the roughly 747 million acres of forest in the United States, almost 60 percent—430 million acres—is privately owned. These private lands provide the majority of the country’s forest products and environmental services. It is estimated that 89 percent of the timber harvested in the United States comes from private lands, an increase from 76 percent in the 1970s.

Yale’s historic role as a convener of diverse stakeholders and a facilitator and adviser to “unexpected coalitions” makes it a potent advocate and force for conservation and stewardship of private forests and for promoting dialogue and intelligent assessment of issues related to sustainable forestry on private lands. Combining the academic and research expertise at Yale with the practical experience of private sector leaders, we work to find innovative ways to bring various stakeholder communities together and to move toward a more sustainable future. Through our research, forums, and publications, we provide landowners and the public with topical, scientifically based information so that they can make more informed decisions. There are three major initiatives:

Dynamic Models of Land Use Change We are developing analytic tools and techniques to assist community leaders, conservation organizations, and citizens to understand and predict land use change dynamics, in particular changes in forested lands. The research into forest fragmentation patterns and dynamics, done in collaboration with the State University of New York College of Science and Forestry, is being piloted in the northeastern United States.

Sustaining Family Forests Initiative The Yale Program on Private Forests is leading a U.S. national collaboration of government agencies, industry, NGOs, certification systems, landowners, and academics organized to gain comprehensive knowledge about family forest owners. Using social marketing methods, the project is aimed at creating credible, useful information about the family forest owner population for those who wish to create a climate in which forest owners can easily find the information and services they desire to help them conserve and manage their land.

Southern Hardwood Forest Research Initiative The goal of this research project is to advance the understanding and management of hardwood forests in the southern United States. Research questions are designed to address the needs of private landowners focused on forest management on productive sites that are managed for timber as well as other ecosystem values.

The Program on Private Forests is housed in Marsh Hall. Students have the opportunity to participate in all aspects of the program activities, including research, forums, workshops, and outreach.

School Forests

The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies owns and manages 10,880 acres of forestland in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont, which are maintained as working forests. The School Forests provide educational, research, and professional opportunities for the students and faculty of the School; they are used as a laboratory for teaching, management, and research.

Program on Forest Health

The Program on Forest Health is engaged in education, research, and dissemination of scientific information to inform policy decisions affecting the health of forested ecosystems and landscapes. We emphasize (a) maintaining the long-term ecological health of forests despite biotic, abiotic, and societal pressures, and (b) developing management solutions for sustaining and restoring healthy forests and the communities that depend on them.

Increasingly, forests face multiple stresses from insect outbreaks, invasive species, wildfires, disease, pollution, fragmentation, natural disturbances, and human impacts. In the face of these threats, forest managers are challenged to maintain forest ecosystems that provide environmental services, economic return, and recreational and aesthetic value to landowners and society as a whole. Good scientific information about emerging problems and complex interactions is crucial to ensure that management decisions today do not compromise the long-term health of forests.

Combining Yale’s academic and research expertise with the practical experience of private sector leaders, we bring diverse stakeholder communities together to develop innovative management strategies and solutions to forest health problems, while promoting interdisciplinary assessments of critical forest health issues. Our research, forums, and publications provide policy makers and the public with topical, scientifically based information. We offer courses, seminars, and workshops for students and stakeholders and for public awareness. Graduate-level courses in forest health, fire science and policy, and invasive species are taught as part of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies curriculum.

Projects include forums, seminar series, workshops, and publications on threats and effects of invasive species; research on managing invasives in fire-dependent ecosystems; control of invasive plants to protect endangered species habitat; research on the economic costs of wildfire at the urban-wildland interface; and use of prescribed fire to achieve forest management goals. Research on fire effects on forest vegetation, and the converse—the effects of forest composition and structure on fire behavior—is being undertaken in the “Sky Islands” of West Texas and Mexico as well as in boreal Alaska. A recent project resulted in the development of a decision support system for managing trees along public utility right of ways to reduce power outage complications resulting from tree failure from disease and/or storms. Students are involved in all aspects of the program, including planning and organizing forums and speaker series, and conducting research.

Partnerships

The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is a multidisciplinary learning center with tremendous resources, both within and outside the School. The School is engaged in partnerships that range from alliances with other Yale programs and schools to formal agreements with many external organizations and universities. These relationships enrich the School and add important dimensions to the F&ES learning experience.

Within Yale

Students of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies often take advantage of the faculty and resources of other schools and departments within the Yale system. F&ES has several types of arrangements that enable students to fully benefit from the University.

The School has joint-degree agreements with the School of Architecture, Divinity School, School of Engineering & Applied Science, Law School, School of Management, the School of Public Health, and the Graduate School’s programs in International Relations, and International Development Economics. For further information on joint degrees, please refer to Joint Master’s Degree Programs and Combined Doctoral Degree.

The School has also cultivated relationships with key faculty members of other divisions of the University who have research and teaching interests that overlap with the School’s foci. These faculty hail from the schools of Architecture, Management, Medicine, and the Faculty of Engineering, as well as the departments of Geology and Geophysics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Economics, and Anthropology, among others. For a full list of the faculty with joint appointments, see Courtesy Joint Appointments.

YALE INSTITUTE FOR BIOSPHERIC STUDIES

Established in May 1990, the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS) serves as a key focus for Yale University’s research and training efforts in the environmental sciences. YIBS is committed to the teaching of environmental studies to future generations and provides physical and intellectual centers for research and education that address fundamental questions that will inform the ability to generate solutions to the biosphere’s most critical environmental problems. There are currently eight YIBS Research Centers: Center for Earth Observation; Center for Eco-Epidemiology; Center for the Ecology and Systematics of Animals on the Verge of Extinction (ECOSAVE); ECOSAVE Molecular Systematics and Conservation Genetics Laboratory; Center for Field Ecology; Center for Human and Primate Reproductive Ecology; Center for the Study of Global Change; and Earth System Center for Stable Isotopic Studies. The School’s current interests are most closely aligned with the Centers for Earth Observation, Eco-Epidemiology, Molecular Systematics and Conservation Genetics, Field Ecology, and Stable Isotopic Studies. For full information on the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies and its associated centers, please refer to the YIBS Web site: www.yale.edu/yibs.

YALE PEABODY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, founded in 1866, contains one of the great scientific collections in North America. Numbering more than eleven million objects and specimens, the collections are used for exhibition and for research by scholars throughout the world. Each year, an increasing number of specimens from the collection are available online at www.peabody.yale.edu.

The mission of the Peabody Museum is to advance understanding of earth’s history through geological, biological, and anthropological research, and by communicating the results of this research to the widest possible audience through publication, exhibition, and educational programs.

Fundamental to this mission is stewardship of the museum’s collections, which provide a remarkable record of the history of the earth, its life, and its cultures. Conservation, augmentation and use of these collections become increasingly urgent as modern threats to the diversity of life and culture continue to intensify.

The museum’s collections are a major component of the research and teaching activities of the Peabody and Yale. The curators and staff are engaged in contributing new knowledge based on the museum’s research materials. All collections are used in undergraduate and graduate teaching and research, as well as in public programs and exhibitions. The Yale Peabody Museum fills many important roles on the Yale University campus, particularly as it has expanded its role in the community and the region, thereby offering a “front door” to the university for the general public.

In 1995, a formal collaboration was established among the Peabody Museum, the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, and the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. This environmental partnership recognizes the Peabody Museum as a resource and catalyst for interdisciplinary research on the earth’s history and environment, and seeks to strengthen the intellectual ties between the museum and other groups with a shared interest in environmental research at Yale. The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies maintains a close association with the Peabody. Among other activities involving F&ES faculty, staff, and students,the Peabody Field Station in Guilford, Connecticut, is used collaboratively for research on coastal and estuarine systems.

External Partnerships

The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has partnership agreements with numerous local, national, and international organizations beyond the Yale campus. The following are a few examples of these arrangements.

HUBBARD BROOK

The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study in New Hampshire is a long-term multidisciplinary investigation of the structure, function, and interactions among atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems. Proposed in 1960 by F.H. Bormann and started in 1963, Hubbard Brook is one of the oldest Long-Term Ecological Research sites supported by the National Science Foundation. As such, the facility has functioned as a national center and attracted investigators from a spectrum of biological and physical sciences.

F&ES Professor Emeritus F. Herbert Bormann and Gene E. Likens founded the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. Today the School’s students and faculty benefit from more than thirty-five years of data and hands-on clinical experience. The Hubbard Brook ecosystem provides collaborators with background data drawn from long-term records of climate, hydrology, precipitation, and streamwater chemistry; and with biological data from numerous ongoing studies. Cooperative research at Hubbard Brook has contributed to a better understanding of the northern hardwood ecosystem. The Hubbard Brook investigators are achieving the most fundamental aspect of ecosystem studies—the integration of data into a functioning scheme of ecosystem behavior through time.

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

The National University of Singapore is a top research university with a far-reaching faculty and a multinational student body. The University offers a Master of Science in Environmental Management that provides environmental management education for senior and midlevel managers in corporations, institutions, and government and nongovernmental organizations. This new program is multidisciplinary, with the combined resources of seven of the University’s faculties, as well as international, drawing on the expertise of established environmental agencies and institutions both locally and globally.

In 2001 the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies entered into an official agreement with the National University of Singapore to share scientific, academic, and technical resources; exchange faculty and students; and cooperate in research, outreach, and conferences. There has been an active faculty exchange over the last six years.

NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has enjoyed a reciprocal relationship with the Graduate Studies Program at the New York Botanical Garden for many years. Begun in 1896, the Botanical Garden program currently enrolls several dozen students who are carrying out studies in systematic and economic botany at field sites around the world. The program’s expertise spans the spectrum of both systematic and economic botany. It is operated in conjunction with several other academic institutions, including the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

The resources of the New York Botanical Garden include one of the largest botanical libraries in the world, with more than 1.25 million accessions, an herbarium with over six million specimens and 10,000 species of living plants housed in several greenhouses, as well as an electron microscope, environmental chambers, and instrumentation for radiobiological, biochemical, anatomical, molecular, phytochemical, chemosystematic, numerical taxonomy, and vegetational studies.

THE ENERGY AND RESOURCES INSTITUTE

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), a not-for-profit organization in New Delhi, India, was founded in 1974. Over the years, TERI has expanded from its initial purpose of documentation and information dissemination to become a dynamic and flexible organization with a global vision and a local focus. Twenty-five years ago, the institute initiated research projects in the fields of energy, environment, and sustainable development. Today, TERI is an internationally recognized center for research and outreach, and this reputation is rapidly being enhanced by the educational opportunities offered by TERI University.

The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies entered into an official agreement with TERI in 2001, whereby each organization agreed to support the other’s faculty and student activities, thus expanding the resources of both learning institutions while fostering international relationships.

EXTERNAL JOINT-DEGREE PROGRAMS

The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies also has joint-degree agreements with the Pace University School of Law and the Vermont Law School. Further information on these programs is available through the admissions office.

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