The goals of the Project are to better understand the role
of foreign policy, broadly defined, in efforts to preserve the environment
and natural resources. More specifically, the project seeks to understand
foreign policy processes in international efforts to address adverse
environmental changes at the local, regional and global levels; to analyse
the actors and institutions ¡V both domestic and international ¡V that
constrain and shape national actions on environmental issues; to show how
environmental changes influence foreign policy processes; and to
critically assess environmental foreign policies. Other objectives of the
project are to "test the waters" of research in this field; to showcase
research that has not been forced into traditional empirical,
epistemological or ontological boxes in the expectation that new areas and
issues will be illuminated; to give insight to governmental and
non-governmental practitioners and activists, which can help to improve
their understanding of environmental issues in foreign policy; to
disseminate these ideas so that they might have some positive effect on
policy-making and scholarship; and to enlighten students and laypersons
interested in environmental protection, sustainable development,
international affairs and foreign policy.
We hope this Website is useful to visitors. We encourage
you to share it with other people interested in environmental foreign
policy and efforts of individuals, organizations and governments to
preserve and protect the natural environment.
Paul G. Harris,
Director