Integrated Environmental Management - IEM

  Hurdlers - Source: The New York Times.  For the final hurdle of my learning on this IEM course, the hill country farm conversions to forestry group of five prepared a presentation to bestow upon the course leaders via an online Teams meeting. As expected, due my slow internet speed, when my turn to present came the Teams system failed and another group member needed cover for me. Slow internet is a barrier it seems to effective IEM processes. To overcome this issue when working as a group and meeting online, we did not use video, and instead used voice calls. This worked well, for a few reasons, firstly, the coms system didn't crash, secondly, more attention could be focused on the item being addressed rather than someone’s hair-do, thirdly, it felt more relaxed not having to present a certain way, or worry about what was going on in the background when meetings took place. The final IEM course scenario (not so relaxed) was to present our analysis material and recommendation...

Working in an integrated way to achieve  short and long term collaborative, holistic sustainable outcomes for environmental problems is complex. Thankfully others such as Buhrs and Cairns have come up with models to guide an IEM process.  Below the Cairns IEM model explains a step by step approach from problem definition through to achieving short and long term goals. Cairns' full name was Hugh John Foster Cairns and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a British microbiologist that contributed to molecular genetics, public health and cancer research.  Cairns IEM model. Source: Cairns, J, J. 1991 . According to Cairns, IEM can  be defined as ''a proactive or  preventive measures that maintain the environment in good condition for a variety  of long-range sustainable uses. Alternatively, IEM may be regarded as coordinated  control, direction, or influence of all human activities in a defined environmental  system to achieve and balance the bro...

It's all connected   Interconnected spheres of IEM: Rod Barker (2022). An IEM processes is multifaceted, it takes coordination and facilitation to make sense of complex information and processes to attain certain outcomes. According to Cairns (1991), a large challenge for IEM is working with government institutions that battle over policy powers to maintain control over their spheres of influence. As most things are in this universe, there are innumerable interrelationships between multiple forces and organisms that are constantly changing. Luckily for me the universe was not included as a problem for my study assignment, yet it did feel that way at times. In the final weeks of my study about IEM, I've found out what it can be like to be part of an integrated environmental policy approach. Mentioned in the previous blog, attaining shared views on relatively simple things, such as 'sustainability' become massive barriers to forward movement. Making progress on comp...