Center for Political Ecology is a cyber-based collective of scholar-advocates who generate independent and credible research on environment, health and human rights in local and global contexts. Our social documentation, action-research, and expert witness work documents the conditions that structure human and environmental crises and the consequential damages of environmental and human rights abuse; facilitates efforts to define and secure meaningful remedy; and, demonstrates the crucial role of biocultural sustainability in charting a sustainable path for the future. The over-arching goal of our action-research collective is to both demonstrate and apply the power of credible and independent science, including citizen science, as a means to strengthening environmental and human rights frameworks and experience. To do this work, we use our knowledge base and social networks to:
- Engage in local ecologies by supporting and working with groups involved in environmental education, agroecology, energy, and other sustainability activism in the Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay Areas, and in the communities that CPE researchers call home.
- Engage in global ecologies by producing and sponsoring with affected-communities and other civil society partners critical environmental and social justice contributions that inform United Nations, international agencies, and other government efforts to provide redress and restore biocultural health.
- Educate a broad local and global public through the production of films, reports, books and other publications, events, and exhibits that critically examine the linkages between economic activity, politics, culture, human rights, and the environment.
- Collaborate with community partners, advocates, and funders and serve as a nonprofit fiscal-sponsor for sustainability initiatives that prioritize biocultural health.
Operational Ethics: Our community-based work is typically conducted at the request and in collaboration with indigenous peoples and other affected communities and groups who seek to restore the fundamental rights to a healthy environment through research and action. Project-specific grants are solicited and used in ways that protect the credibility of an ethically-sound, socially-responsible, independent institution engaged in science and human rights:
- Our code of ethics includes a conflict of interest policy that governs CPE relationships with funders and project partners.
- Our action-research utilizes an open peer-review process for the development, implementation, and publication of Center-sponsored initiatives.
- Our research, reports, publications, and expert witness and advocacy initiatives are developed and conducted in alliance with professional associations, members of the scientific community, institutions, and civil society partners.
CPE track record: As a Santa Cruz, California-based nonprofit, we have historically operated with a modest endowment and budget, no paid staff, and no formal office. The day-to-day work of the Center occurs through the actions of its members, locally and around the world, in the specific sites where focused research and action takes place. With project-specific support and a great deal of probono labor, we have managed to do some pretty big things… Launching the CNS Journal in an era of socialist collapse, we helped keep a critical conversation alive on the relationships between economic determinism, resource degradation, and social inequality. In serving as the nonprofit sponsor for CPE fellows and community groups, we have helped support the emergence of organizations that prioritize environmental and social sustainability. Action-research with affected communities documenting environmental damages and related human rights abuse associated with hydroelectric dam development in Guatemala and nuclear militarism in the Marshall Islands generated documents that serve as core statements of damage and remedial needs in reparation negotiation proceedings. Our exploration of global trends in the environment/health/human rights nexus has generated reports and publications that inspire, educate, and encourage transformative public policy.