Dr. Charles H.W. Foster , whose life-work has concentrated on land use and forestry, recently initiated a new ENRP effort on environmental regionalism . ENRP Faculty Chair, Robert Stavins , is leading a new research project on urban water management and senior fellow Mary Graham is investigating the effects of information technology on natural resource use . In Spring 2000, ENRP supported the Alfred A. Taubman Center 's ground-breaking conference on Conservation in the Internet Age . Besides such informal, spontaneously-arising regional divisions, formally imposed regions began to emerge in the 1930s through such New Deal initiatives as the National Resources Planning Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other natural resources planning and development programs.
Environmental regionalism takes a number of different though overlapping forms.
It includes arrangements for governance that are transboundary in structure and transjurisdictional in nature. In May 1999, the Kennedy School launched a special inquiry into environmental regionalism led by Charles H.W. Foster . A graduate seminar on environmental regionalism was organized and offered during the fall term. A mini-colloquium was held on November 22, bringing several respondents before an audience of 25 practicing regionalists. A working paper series to follow will present the results of these inquiries.