GEM Ethic
The GEM vision is rooted in Wisconsin's renowned conservation heritage, which was built by pioneering leaders including John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Gaylord Nelson, and others.
GEM Mission
GEM's mission is pioneering and applying practical learning methods and technology to solve natural resource problems by linking faculty, students, and citizens worldwide. GEM builds hope for the future through its work on sustainability, international programming and leadership development.
Why GEM? Why Now?
Threats to health and security
People in local communities everywhere share the same needs for clean water, adequate food and shelter, and jobs to support their families and livelihoods. Maintaining a healthy natural resource base is the most cost-effective and durable means to meet these needs. However, for many, the challenge of sustaining basic needs is a daunting task, which increasingly results in serious threats to human health and security worldwide.
Teaching leaders and citizens how to manage our natural resources offers hope for attacking threats such as:
- Contaminated water contributes to health problems for 1.2 billion people each year as well as the death of 15 million children.*
- Since 1990, over nine million hectares of the world's forests -- an area about the size of Portugal -- have been lost each year.**
- By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people -- or nearly 50 percent of the world's population -- will face water scarcity.***
- Each year an additional 20 million hectares of agricultural land becomes too degraded for crop production or is lost to urban sprawl. Yet over the next 30 years the demand for food in the developing world is expected to double.+
- With an estimated population of 9 to 10 billion by 2100, the planet will be incapable of providing the resources and processing the wastes associated with an energy economy dominated by fossil fuels.++
Natural resource challenges pose serious threats to human society, ranging from food, water and energy resource scarcity to environmental degradation to conflicts between the haves and have-nots. Ultimately these threats, felt by everyone, redefine and expand our concept of security, and call for an urgent sharing of solutions on a global scale. GEM is answering that call by pioneering and applying practical learning methods and technology to solve natural resource problems by linking faculty, students and citizens worldwide.
