Our Work

A key component in the pursuit of sustainable prosperity is the systems of governance through which our communities and societies make decisions, regulate our actions, and channel us toward collective goals.  The consequences of failures in governance are felt acutely at the local level, with the most immediate and obvious impacts falling on those people whose livelihoods directly depend on natural resources and healthy ecosystems, often resulting in a mutually reinforcing cycle of poverty and environmental degradation.

Yet the challenges are also more subtle and profound than this.  Patterns of decision-making based on competition and conflict trickle down from the international arena and national partisan politics and are replicated at the level of cities, neighbourhoods and villages and have the effect of alienating people from each other.  Patterns of governance that remove the most important choices from local decision-making have the effect of also alienating many people from political processes altogether.  Equitable Earth Initiative tackles these challenges by connecting research, policy and practice in order to promote learning on land and natural resource governance.