Learning for Environmental Governance

Learning helps to govern the environment and adapt proactively to complex and emerging environmental issues. This Element synthesizes insights from academic and applied research on learning to inform both research and practice. It helps better understand, diagnose, and support learning and more adaptive responses to environmental problems.

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Learning is critical for our capacity to govern the environment and adapt proactively to complex and emerging environmental issues. Yet, underlying barriers can challenge our capacity for learning in environmental governance. As a result, we often fail to adequately understand pressing environmental problems or produce innovative and effective solutions. This Element synthesizes insights from extensive academic and applied research on learning around the world to inform both research and practice. We distill the social and structural features of governance to help researchers and practitioners better understand, diagnose, and support learning and more adaptive responses to environmental problems.