"Community Resilience: A Key Indicator of Social Sustainability"

Presented by Dr. Kristen Magis, owner of the Leadership Institute in Silverton, Oregon and fellow at the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University.

Date:   Friday, May 9th
Time:  12:30 - 2:30pm
Place:  Smith 236

Community Resilience is an indicator central to social sustainability and is vital as well to forest sustainability. Community Resilience is the existence and engagement of community resources by community members to thrive in an environment characterized by change, uncertainty, unpredictability and surprise. Members of resilient communities intentionally develop personal and collective capacity to respond to and influence change, to sustain and renew the community and to develop new trajectories for the communities’ future. This presentation reviews the development of the Resilience of Forest Dependent Communities measurement protocol by the U.S. Roundtable on Sustainable Forests.

Dr. Magis's research agenda includes social justice, sustainability and democratic governance. Her recent work includes: research on Global Civil Society coalitions’ proclivity to find collective voice in diversity, and consultation with the U.S. Roundtable on Sustainable Forests to develop a social indicator new to the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators.

For more information about the Social Sustainability group, contact Marion Sharp sharpml@pdx.edu.