CHANGES IN LAND AND WATER POLICIES INSIDE AND OUTSIDE GOVERNMENT

Responsibilities for natural resources and the environment shift back and forth between the government and private parties. For instance, an agency may out-source a task to a private firm or it may regulate a business activity that had been unregulated. In this research project, I will study how decisions like these are producing an increasingly complex array of resource policies that challenge the daily work of all involved. This array includes not only policies created and administered by government agencies but also policies that nongovernmental organizations, business firms, and land-owners have adopted to guide their own actions. What is new is the number and scope of formal policies in organizations outside government and the interplay of policies made inside and outside of government. Policy innovation is often assumed helpful for creating human systems that are resilient in the face of climate change. Because agencies and other organizations would benefit from learning how innovation affects their organizations' functions, project findings will be shared with organizations that are studied. The project will characterize the policies of governmental, business, and nongovernmental organizations, identify legal or other principles guiding these policies (such as redress for damages), trace how these organizations have changed their structures or purposes as they have developed these new policies, and investigate why groups outside government have increasingly become involved in setting their own policies for land and water.