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WORKING TOWARDS A JUST & LIVABLE FUTURE

 

 

At Oregon, we know that we are in the midst of unprecedented and transformative environmental change. All of us, and especially our students, are facing dramatic ecological shifts to all our natural systems because of climate change and other forces. This change highlights social justice dynamics and environmental inequities that shape our world. As a result, we see societal paradigm shifts in systems that govern our economy, the built environment, democracy, and fundamental relationships among people. This work requires the amplification of voices that have often gone unheard.

We face these challenges by generating new approaches, finding proactive problem-solving pathways, engaging in collaboration with multiple constituencies and social groups, participating in diverse ideas and forms of knowledge, and exerting the full measure of our creative energy.

About the Environment Initiative

 

 

EI Year in Review

Environment Initiative Annual Review

Read about the successes and solutions developed by experts, faculty members, fellows, and leaders within the initiative.

Read the Review

Events

Student Advocacy and Action for Environmental Justice (SAAEJ, pronounced "sage") and the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center (ENR) present an environmental justice panel focused on the intersection of water law, policy, and science.
Elizabeth Kronk Warner (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) will visit Oregon Law to deliver the 17th Annual Rennard Strickland Lecture on Tuesday, October 24th, 2023. Kronk Warner is the Jefferson B. & Rita Fordham Presidential Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Utah's S.J.
Sackett v. Environmental Protection Association
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Environment Experts in the media

For those media outlets looking to get a quote or hear from one of UO's environment experts, reach out to our media team.

Contact Media Relations

News

LSE, The Ballpark Podcast: centennial professor Laura Pulido (LSE Department of Geography and Environment and Phelan US Centre) and Jeremy Williams (The Earthbound Report) discuss how environmental racism manifests and how urban development has contributed to this problem.
The University of Oregon’s Environment Initiative has named six faculty fellows for the 2023-24 academic year.
The Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI) at the University of Oregon is featured along with interim director Robert Elliott and associate director of project development Joana Jansen.
Josh Roering, professor of earth sciences at the University of Oregon, provides expert commentary for Sci Tech Daily.
E&E Daily: Roberta Mann, professor emerita at the University of Oregon School of Law, is quoted. 
Environmentally minded work from University of Oregon, College of Design students, faculty promotes the flourishing of all species.

Long in the works, the Megalopa at Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) will be safer, faster and better-equipped for ocean exploration.

Oregon Live: The University of Oregon is a collaborator in the Willamette-Laja Twinning Partnership. 
Washington Monthly: Adell Amos, professor of law and executive director of the Environment Initiative at the University of Oregon, is article author. 
ABC News: Dr. Michael Coughlan, an environmental anthropologist at the University of Oregon who studies wildfires and fire management, is quoted. 

 


Territorial Acknowledgement

The University of Oregon is located on Kalapuya ilihi, the traditional indigenous homeland of the Kalapuya people. Following treaties between 1851 and 1855, Kalapuya people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the U.S. government and forcibly removed to the Coast Reservation in Western Oregon. Today, Kalapuya descendants are primarily citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and they continue to make important contributions to their communities, to the UO, to Oregon, and to the world.
 
In following the Indigenous protocol of acknowledging the original people of the land we occupy, we also extend our respect to the nine federally recognized Indigenous nations of Oregon: the Burns Paiute Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Coquille Indian Tribe, the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, and the Klamath Tribes. We express our respect to the many more tribes who have ancestral connections to this territory, as well as to all other displaced Indigenous peoples who call Oregon home.

MOU between UO and Oregon Tribes