THis course introduces students to an interdisciplinary understanding of social-ecological systems concepts, theory and practice. The course focuses on on application of SES concepts to various shocks, especially climate change with a developing countries perspective. The course provides students with a framework for resilience thinking, and the tools to apply these concepts in the field. The first portion of the course explores the theoretical foundation of resilience thinking. The second part of the course dives into the application of resilience concepts around the world, with an emphasis on case studies; resilience critiques and limitations; and frameworks for operationalizing resilience. 

Systems approach and thinking have moved from being “in vogue” concept on the periphery to being fundamental to analysis in a variety of disciplines. At the same time, modeling and simulation, while used in a variety of engineering and management related disciplines, has gained significant ground in both complexity and sustainability science. The course will engage in questions such as: What is a system? What is systems thinking? Why do we need systems thinking for sustainability science? What are models? How do we develop models? What is simulation? Why do we need modeling and simulation? What platforms, tools and techniques can we learn to conduct modeling and simulation based analysis? These are some of the questions that the course deals with. This course while introducing theory associated to systems and sustainability science is focused on providing hands-on fundamentals on modeling and simulation techniques originating in system dynamics. 

HDNRM is a graduate level seminar focused on broadening the concept of “natural resources”, understanding the interlinkages between humans and nature, and developing a critical perspective to the dominant theories and practices of natural resource management.

What are natural resources? How are they defined? Our resources finite? Who identifies, decides, manages and controls them? Who has the right to own and use it? What are the drivers that increase the protection, conservation and management of natural resources? These are some of the questions that the course will deal with. These questions look deceptively easy but are some of the toughest questions that the world is grappling with. All these questions are laden with socially constructed human values, goals, interests, needs and desires. These questions are also laden with issues of conflicts related to power as we see between traditional and modern scientific knowledge. As the urgency to manage our resources “sustainably” increases, scholars and practitioners across a variety of disciplines will invariably find themselves dealing with situations where the answer at best is “complex”. 

Using an interdisciplinary lens and drawing on a variety of disciplines (e.g. systems, social -ecology, ecological economics, psychology, complexity, political ecology, anthropology and humanities and forestry) and concepts (e.g. access and rights to resources, ecosystem services, livelihoods, community based natural resource management, common property resources, etc.), HDNRM introduces the latest and the broadest possible array of theories and important concepts throughout the semester.  

This course introduces the most pressing environmental and development challenges of the world. Using a system’s thinking approach, this course helps in appreciating the interlinkages between human growth and consumption to environmental degradation. Using the concepts of sustainability, the course will explore the root causes of such environmental challenges and provide window into the latest thinking associated to solutions.  

Finding solutions to problems across diversity of sectors i.e. social, economic and environment requires abilities to: examine the structures of the system, evaluate micro and macro scalar dynamics, identify key actors within and outside the system, test the quality of information provided, recognize biases in the presented information etc. to name a few. Due to the highly dynamic, non-linear and adaptive behaviors exhibited by complex real-world systems, decision makers, scientists and practitioners of sustainability require newer ways of thinking that: move beyond disciplinary divides, allow integration of diverse information, and provide ability to examine the system as a whole. This course will introduces critical thinking, provides tools for systems thinking and ability to think in an interdisciplinary way that are essential for creating long term solutions for sustainability. 

This course provides the framework and approach to synthesize the learnings across the bachelors in forestry program in an applied setting. This highly collaborative, applied course allows for students to see how their learnigns across the program can be applied in real life setting. 

This course provides the students to explore their leadership styles and understand the different kinds of leadershp models available for different contexts and organizational structures. Through an interactive coursework, students work to identify their leadership style and how they will use it in a real life setting.