The Environmental Knowledge Commons

Our natural environment constitutes a complex and dynamic global ecosystem that provides essential resources for well-being and survival. Yet the environment is also subject to unprecedented threats from human activities, such as climate change, pollution, habitat loss, biodiversity decline, and the overexploitation of natural resources. This volume argues that such complex, multidimensional challenges demand equally complex, multi-dimensional solutions and calls for coordinated, multi-stakeholder action at all scales, including governments, civil society, the private sector, and individuals. To meet the moment effectively, such interventions require both scientific knowledge about how the environment functions and social and institutional knowledge about the actors involved in environmental governance and management. Chapters include case studies of environmental knowledge collection, management, and sharing to explore how data and knowledge sharing can inform effective, multi-stakeholder action to combat global threats to our environment. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Author Biography

Anjanette (Angie) Raymond is Director of the Program on Data Management and Information Governance at the Ostrom Workshop, a Professor in the Department of Business Law and Ethics, at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and adjunct professor of law at Maurer Law School (Indiana). She has written widely in the areas of online dispute resolution, data governance, artificial intelligence governance, privacy, international finance, and commercial dispute resolution. Scott J. Shackelford serves on the faculty of Indiana University where he is Cybersecurity Program Chair along with being Executive Director of the Ostrom Workshop. He is also an affiliated scholar at both the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Stanford Center for Internet and Society, as well as senior fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. His previous books include The Internet of Things: What Everyone Needs to Know (2020), Governing New Frontiers in the Information Age: Toward Cyber Peace (2020), and Managing Cyber Attacks in International Law, Business, and Relations: In Search of Cyber Peace (2014). Jessica Steinberg is Director of the Program on Environment and Natural Resource Governance at the Ostrom Workshop, Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University, and adjunct professor of political science. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, local politics of natural resource extraction, information politics, and violent conflict. Her first book, Mines, Communities, and States: The Local Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Africa (2019), was awarded the 2020 Sprout Award for the best book in environmental politics by the International Studies Association. Michael Mattioli is a former Sun Microsystems microchip designer turned award-winning professor of law at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University. Mattioli’s scholarship on law and technology has been published in leading law reviews. He is also the co-editor of Big Data Is Not a Monolith (2016).