About Us

The Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), a leading provider of cutting-edge environmental research, education, and training, since its inception in 1994, has grown into two institutions—an Earth Institute center and the Secretariat for a major environmental consortium. The center’s new name is the Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability (EICES, pronounced “i-sees”). EICES also continues, however, as the Secretariat for the Consortium for Environmental Research and Conservation, continuing 15 years of collaborations between the Earth Institute, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden, The Wildlife Conservation Society and EcoHealth Alliance on biodiversity conservation.

As well as the name change, the center has adopted a new website, www.eices.columbia.edu, which is designed to foster increased flexibility, engagement and exposure.

The Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability’s approach is to proliferate a deeper understanding of ecology in order to inform political, social and economic decision-making – an essential facet to achieving long-term sustainable development.

Sprouting Mushrooms – Nahush Barad

Through the creation of economically, environmentally and socially sustainable practices, we are called to reinvent our relationship to the natural world and also recognize that humans are an integral part of the ecosystems on which we depend. In this sense, the conservation of biodiversity and the preservation of vital ecosystem functions are not merely ends in themselves, but part of a comprehensive, future-oriented, adaptive strategy of human and environmental prosperity.