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Steven L. Yaffee
Professor
Environmental Policy and Planning
Climate + Energy
Conservation + Restoration
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
In the Media