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Strategic Vision (Long version)

Mission of the Department

The Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University began as the Nation's first college of forestry (1898-1903). It evolved into the Department of Forestry (1911-1948) and the Department of Conservation (1948-1970) within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, before assuming its current name in 1970. Today the Department is a leader in research, education, and outreach activities in areas as wide-ranging as conservation biology; fisheries, forest, wetlands, and wildlife science and management; quantitative ecology, ecosystem biology and biogeochemistry, human dimensions of natural resource management, environmental policy and institutional analysis, and environmental management and education. Our mission is:

To develop knowledge and facilitate learning to improve society's
stewardship of natural resources and the environment.

Goals

We pursue this mission by focusing on improving understanding of:

  1. how natural processes and human activities influence the composition, structure, function, and health of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems;

  2. the characteristics and dynamics of fish, aquatic, wildlife, forest, and wetland resources;

  3. how management actions can enhance the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources within terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as well as overall ecosystem health;

  4. decision-making processes with respect to natural resources and environmental conservation, including enhancing integration of biological and human dimensions in such decisions; and

  5. 5. how management actions and policy decisions can improve environmental stewardship and the quality of life by reducing negative impacts associated with plants, animals, and ecosystem processes.

Approaches

  1. Expand the scientific and scholarly information available for integrated environmental and natural resources management through excellence of research in applied (problem-focused) ecological and social sciences, environmental ethics, and public policy analysis, domestically and internationally.

  2. Provide undergraduate and graduate education programs that are challenging, prepare students to meet the changing needs of society for effective, integrated environmental and natural resource management, and result in an overall rewarding student experience.

  3. Foster public stewardship of natural resources and the environment by increasing public awareness of new discoveries and understanding of the complexity of problems, including the knowledge, tools, and understanding of decision and management processes needed to achieve solutions.

  4. Disseminate cutting-edge environmental science and natural resource management knowledge and tools for learning, domestically and internationally, to natural resource management professionals and educators, environmental and conservation leaders, public policy decision makers, natural resource users, and diverse adult and youth populations.

Program Areas

Research, teaching, and outreach/extension activities in the Department of Natural Resources focus on the interface of ecological systems and human relationships with those systems. We produce and disseminate knowledge and information about aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including associated human activities and impacts. By integrating our understanding of aquatic, terrestrial, and human systems with the needs of policymakers, managers, and citizens, we help foster informed decisions to improve society’s stewardship of natural resources.

Our emphasis is problem-focused and integrative, applying theory and empirical data from ecological and social sciences to address important natural resource and environmental conservation issues. Scholarly inquiry, education, and outreach are focused on two major program areas, Resource Ecology and Management (REM), and Resource Policy and Management (RPM). The unifying theme underlying these two programmatic foci emphasizes that an array of scientific disciplines and approaches is necessary to solve complex problems of conservation and management of populations, species, and ecosystems, and to ensure sustainable human societies into the future. Problems addressed in both the REM and RPM program areas, from complementary disciplinary vantage points, include sustainable exploitation of species of economic importance, management of overabundant or invasive species, conservation and restoration of scarce species and their habitats, and mitigating the effects of human-induced changes on the environment. Research and scholarship across these program areas strive to improve incorporation and integration of both human and biological dimensions into natural resources decision-making processes, and provides analysis of the biological, ecological, political, institutional, cultural, ethical, and technical contexts in which environmental decisions occur.

Resource Ecology and Management (REM)

Focal topics within this program area include applied ecology, conservation biology, ecosystem biology and biogeochemistry, quantitative ecology, fishery and aquatic science, forest science, and wildlife science. Scholarly attention focuses on patterns in the structure and function of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, the processes and environmental factors that control those patterns at several spatial and temporal scales, and how humans influence these patterns, processes, and environmental factors. Diverse taxa and systems are studied, although many faculty have expertise in wildlife, fish, forests, and wetlands.

Resource Policy and Management (RPM)

Focal topics within this program area include community-based natural resources management, environmental ethics, environmental management and education, human dimensions of natural resources management, policy and institutional analysis, program development and evaluation, and risk analysis and management. Scholarly activity within the RPM program focuses on producing and interpreting knowledge about human behaviors, attitudes, values, norms, institutions, and societal processes in relation to human interactions with aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and focuses on human communities and institutional processes at local, state, regional, national, and international scales.

Vital Statistics

Faculty and senior academic staff number 30, including 19 tenure-stream professors, 7 in RPM and 12 (plus 2 Courtesy Faculty through the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit) in REM. Undergraduate majors number about 195; graduate students total 80, with 36 in RPM and 44 in REM. This includes 45 Ph.D., 24 M.S., and 11 M.P.S. students. In 2003, Department faculty published 65 refereed publications (4.6 per research FTE), 64 other publications, and 3 books; faculty and staff produced 26 extension and/or instructional publications (4.3 per extension FTE) and provided 123 extension workshops (20.2 per extension FTE). In 2002, the Department was the leading unit in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in terms of total direct costs generated annually from sponsored grants and contracts ($4.8 million); and second in the College in total direct costs generated per faculty ($318,000).