NPCC Teams up with the University of Eastern Finland to Teach Environmental Collaborative Governance
Laurel Singer, NPCC's executive director, and Steve Greenwood, NPCC's Director of Academic and Training programs, joined faculty from the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) to present an online course on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution. The course brought together more than forty participants from fifteen countries, including Finland, Germany, Russia, Mongolia, USA, Mexico, Tanzania, and Nigeria.
The course advanced understanding of environmental conflicts and the possibilities for collaboration and mitigation of conflicts through collaborative governance, mediation, and participatory methods. The course is both academic and practice-driven.
Professors Irmeli Mustalahti and Lasse Peltonen from the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies at UEF and Jonna Kangasoja from Akordi, a company specializing in environmental conflict resolution, co-taught the course. Mustalahti emphasized that environmental experts are required increasingly to identify, analyze, and mediate conflicts. These skills should be widely taught to various professionals. “Skills of collaboration and mediation should be considered as part of civic education and their teaching should be emphasized similarly to first aid skills,” said Mustalahti.
During the course, participants presented their experience of the social conflicts that their country encounters in the governance of natural resources.
“The course was really informative, the approaches highlighted by the teachers are vital for my role in the Tanzanian commercial forestry sector as an intermediary between local actors, government institutions and the private sector. Collaborative governance may be the solution to most of the challenges we are facing in the sector,” said Kikolo R. Mwakasungula, a participant from the African Forestry organization.
Prior courses have been held at UEF as well as in Denmark and in Mexico with collaborative organizations and universities. The next course in the series will be held in Tanzania in 2021.
Read an article about the 2020 course (PDF)