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Steven L. Yaffee

Professor
Environmental Policy and Planning
Climate + Energy
Conservation + Restoration
yaffee@umich.edu
(734)-763-5451
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Ecosystem Management Initiative
NRE 562: Environmental Policy

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About

Professor Yaffee's research focuses on collaborative decision making on complex environmental and sustainability choices, including the ways that traditional political processes and organizations function, and how new collaborative structures can be developed to encourage more effective decision making. He is particularly interested in landscape-scale conservation and sustainable natural resource management, and how decision-making institutions can be encouraged to take on an ecosystem-scale perspective. Of particular interest is policy involving biological diversity, public lands, marine and coastal ecosystems and energy. Yaffee's research and teaching draws from substantial on-the-ground work with nonprofit organizations and charitable foundations in facilitating dispute resolution and collaborative problem-solving processes, and in helping them develop monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management strategies. He is committed to professional education at SEAS and teaches skill-building courses in political and institutional analysis, negotiation and mediation.

Publications

  • Julia M. Wondolleck and Steven L. Yaffee, Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice: Different Pathways, Common Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2017)
  • Steven L. Yaffee, Public Process, Private Dollars: The Unlikely Story of California's Marine Protected Areas, a book manuscript to be published by Island Press, 2017. in press.
  • Julia M. Wondolleck and Steven L. Yaffee, Building Bridges in Marine Conservation: The Practice of Ecosystem-Based Management (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2016). in press.
  • Julia M. Wondolleck and Steven L. Yaffee, Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Natural Resource Management (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000).
  • Steven L. Yaffee, Ali F. Phillips, Irene C. Frentz, Paul W. Hardy, Sussanne M. Maleki, and Barbara E. Thorpe, Ecosystem Management in the United States: An Assessment of Current Experience, (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996).
  • Steven L. Yaffee, The Wisdom of the Spotted Owl: Policy Lessons for a New Century (Covelo CA: Island Press, 1994).

Research

2013-2017: California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative: An Assessment and Lessons Learned. Resources Legacy Fund Foundation

2014-2016: Evaluating the Impact of the Kinship Fellows Program: An External Assessment. Kinship Foundation

2014-2016: Demonstrating Proof-of-Concept for Video-Based Training on Collaborative Ecosystem Management. McCance Family Foundation

2008-2013: Evaluating and Disseminating Case Studies of Marine Ecosystem-Based Management. Packard Foundation

2008: Preserving Wild California: An External Assessment. Resources Legacy Fund Foundation

Education

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (environmental policy and planning)

MS, University of Michigan (natural resource policy)

BS, University of Michigan (resource planning and conservation)

In the News
Wyss Scholars and Dorris Duke Conservation Fellows

A legacy of leadership: Wyss Scholars and Doris Duke Conservation Fellows

“Leaders are made, not born.” —Warren Bennis, author, “On Becoming a Leader” Fostering leadership in conservation has been a fundamental aim at the U-M School for...

Cover - faith, hope, and sustainability

SEAS alumna Cybelle Shattuck explores the role of faith communities in caring for the earth

What is the role of faith communities in creating a more just and sustainable world? How do those communities transform intention into action? What makes those actions...

Julia Wondolleck
January 10, 2022

Dr. Julia Wondolleck retires after 38 years at SEAS

“In the sustainability field, you've got to build bridges that you can keep crossing.” —Professor Julia Wondolleck Associate Professor Julia Wondolleck has spent decades...

Wildfires, Communities, and Climate Change
August 18, 2021

Wildfires, Communities, and Climate Change

Communities across the western United States face an existential crisis. As forests become drier and thicker with vegetation, and development encroaches further into...

elephant seals in california
June 24, 2020

Professor Steven Yaffee's Book Highlights California’s Landmark Process to Collaboratively Establish Marine Protected Areas

Steven L. Yaffee, a professor of natural resources and environmental policy at SEAS, has authored a newly published book that highlights California’s efforts to establish...

In the Media
06/29/2022
Steven L. Yaffee
Four decades on the front lines of environmental activism (MIT Technology Review)
01/19/2022
Steven L. Yaffee
Wyss Scholars Announced
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