The Colorado Mountains are spectacular to residents and visitors alike! Intense use of these wild and scenic areas is growing rapidly due to many factors, including explosive growth of the state’s resident population, national prosperity and the financial security many are acquiring, fast and "cheap" transportation, and personal preferences for relief from the stresses of work and everyday life through outdoor recreation.

If Ecological Economics is to have any practical meaning, then its concepts and prescriptions must apply to local and regional issues and problems. The tendency to "think globally" goes only so far, since all solutions start with local actions and changes in behavior.

This field trip will spend 5 days looking intensely at a region of Colorado currently in the national news: the White River National Forest. Using Silverthorne as a base, we will investigate the pressing issues that affect this region of Colorado. With a revision of the WRNF plan underway and embroiled in controversy, we have an opportunity to visit and study a region that has immense amounts of data available on resources, uses, and projected future pressures and demands. This region is considered by many as the "battle ground" over traditional vs. ecologically informed resource management. What is decided about management of the WRNF will set the tone for other public lands management decisions for decades to come.

See the Field Trip Schedule part of the class web site for the variety of activities included in the week field trip.

The week of field visits will bring the class together with experts in many fields, from government to the private sector to voluntary agencies. All sides of the complex set of issues and problems will be included. Documents and Team Reports will help prepare the class to take advantage of the experts who have agreed to meet with the class, provide briefings, and accompany us on field visits.

Each student is faced with ending this course by writing a "policy prescription" for moving the WRNF region towards "sustainability" according to the tenants of ecological economics. Field notes based upon briefings and visits will be a key element in helping you develop this policy advice. Ranging through much of the WRNF, you will have an incredible opportunity to ask questions, clarify issues, and seek advice from these experts as you think through how/whether the WRNF can indeed be managed "more sustain ably" and what tools are necessary to achieve this new type of management.