Natural Resource Fellowships

Community Forestry & Environmental Research Partnerships

Southwest Communities and Natural Resource Fellowships
Available from Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships

The Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships Program provides fellowships to graduate students with diverse academic backgrounds from the social to environmental sciences. Fellows typically study the political, cultural, economic and environmental forces that bear on the relationships between communities and the environment.

The Southwest Communities and Natural Resource Fellowships support graduate students doing participatory research with Native American and other southwestern communities. Participatory research is a cooperative approach to research. It engages community members and researchers in a joint process in which both contribute equally and where community members are more than just key informants who provide information in interviews or by other means. They are equal partners in the research: they help formulate research questions, and help design and conduct the research. Community members contribute their expertise about the local situation in pursuit of mutual knowledge, and researchers provide tools and methods for joint analysis of conditions. This may lead to community members making informed decisions to improve their lives.

The program accepts proposals for research on sustainable natural resource management, social and economic justice in environmental management, community ability to maintain traditional lifeways and land uses in the face of outside and/or competing interests, integrating scientific and traditional knowledge in environmental restoration, and other topics relevant to natural resource issues in Native American communities.
 
Fellowship Details:
• Masters fellowships provide awards of up to $7,000
• Pre-Dissertation fellowships provide awards of up to $2,000
• Dissertation fellowships provide awards of up to $15,000

Eligibility:
• We accept applications from students at any U.S. college or university.
•  Students need to be enrolled in a degree-granting program at their home institution.
• Students need to be engaged in graduate research that deals directly or is explicitly relevant to U.S. urban and/or rural communities engaged in the sustainable management of natural resources.
• Students need to be planning to conduct participatory research that actively engages community members in the research process.
• Minority and under-represented students are encouraged to apply.

Deadline/Application:
• Applications must be received by February 2, 2009  
• Applications and full program details online: www.cnr.berkeley.edu/community_forestry

Contact Information:
Carl Wilmsen, CFERP Director, University of California, Berkeley,
101 Giannini Hall #3100, Berkeley, CA 94720; Tel:  (510) 642-3431;
Email: cffellow@nature.berkeley.edu

Thursday, December 18, 2008