Government Department

Government Department

United Nations Environmental History Project

The United Nations Environmental History Project was launched in May 2007 as the historical element of the Global Environmental Governance Project, directed by Dr. Maria Ivanova at the College of William and Mary. In light of current UN reform efforts in the field of the environment and the absence of a systematic record of environmental governance, the UN Environmental History Project seeks to fill the gap in the intellectual history of the environmental field by providing both grounded historical documentation and individual oral accounts of the ways in which ideas about environmental policy were formulated, debated, and/or distorted. The Project therefore aims to: 1) collect the testimonies of individuals actively involved in the creation of the global environmental governance system, 2) preserve and organize available archival materials and copies thereof, and 3) make the materials and findings available to researchers, scholars, and policymakers through an online hub as well as through analytical, policy-relevant publications.