Preface

• Author: Jessica Owley/Keith Hirokawa
• Pages: 9-12

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Preface

Jessica O wley and Keith Hirokawa

In Summer 2011, four upstart junior environmental law professors (Michael

Burger, Elizabeth Burleson, Keith Hirokawa, and Jessica Owley) gathered

on the bank of a Connecticut River to talk about their new careers and what

they viewed as importa nt and exciting elements of being part of legal aca-

demia. e excitement and focus of our own research projects felt i ncom-

plete. Accordingly, we discussed ways to bring together academics to not

only share t heir research with one another, but to collaborate on important

environmental issues of the day. We sought to engage our scholarship with

contemporary problems.

e vision that emerged—and has been articulated in the events that fol-

lowed—was to confront today’s challenges, including those dressed as schol-

arship, in an eective manner that would make research accountable and

connect policy exa mination with policy formulation. e vision led to the

founding of the Environmental Law Collaborative or ELC. Inspired by early

conferences at Airlie House (particularly the 1969 conference that gave birth

to the Environmental Law Institute), the group created a forum to bring

together our fellow researchers to discuss and make progress on pressing

environmental concerns. e ELC seeks to foster progress toward an adap-

tive, conscious, a nd equitable governance of actions that impact local and

global ecologies by engaging the contemporary discourse. To advance society

and secure welfare, locally and g lobally, we must be prepared to face divi-

sive issues that confront our environment. Assuming our strength lies in the

democratic development and conrmation of values and priorities, our citi-

zenry must be willing and c apable of understanding the circumstances and

alternatives that face our natural surroundings. It has become increasingly

apparent that although environmental policy is beneted by a robust drive

for the dissemination of information, environmental policy is also inuenced

by strategic misinformation and eective use of persuasive communication.

e ELC facilitates dia log among thought leaders on sustainable policy

priorities, practical implementation strategies, assessment mechanisms, and

cooperative analysis of science, economics, and ethics. e core functions

served by this group are: (1) collaborative research and analysis of law and

policy questions t hat implicate the i ntegrity of ecosystems; (2) production