The Fabric was the first part of our project. During the period of four months we analised environmental policies from different countries, as well as international agreements for environmental protection.

The aim was to explore the existing ‘fabric’ of multifaceted environmental policies and regulations in order to test how vulnerable, and how resilient, they may prove to be in the face of such adversity as that currently playing out in the US (paralyze it) and UK (exit). To do so, we developed an overview of environmental actions that may be taken, also analyzing our possibilities and limitations as environmental planners.

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Based on the Marine Governance horrendogram of Boyes & Elliott, we divided environmental policies into sectors based on the natural elements they cover.

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After sectorizing the main Environmenmtal Policies and presenting it to the group, we started identifying signals of vulnerability or resilience in the policies of Supranational level. At this point, our criteria for selection was if the policy had its articles also covered on an international policy or agreement. The idea was: in case the supranational policy falls, is there another policy higher in the hierarchy protecting the same assets?

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On this session we started discussing the terms "Vulnerable" and "Resilient". Based on the reading of the text "The Politics of Vulnerability and Resilience" (Frerks et. al, 2011), the following conclusions were made:

Resilience - active or hard policy, which can adapt or recover under change; when a policy offers direct strengh under pressure.

Vulnerability - the lack of resilience, or the likelihood of a policy to be attacked.

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In order to better explore these concepts, our group was divided into three sub-groups. Each sub-group started analyzing policies of different countries which were facing political issues and had potential of leading to a power shift. Germany was also included in order to have the perspective of a country under a geopolitical organization (European Union). The chosen countries were: USA, Germany and South Africa.

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Every sub-group presented a matrix of national policies of their corresponding countries, and the correspondent international agreement or policy which would offer coverage for each topic. The challenges faced:

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South Africa - The legal framework of the country was very confusing, as local governancy is very strong. The country also faces transboundary issues, and there are many green and white papers created which do not become legislation.

Germany - Difficults on dividing the policies into sectors. It was also complicated to find overlap from the international policies over national german ones, as most of them approach very broad topics.

USA - In order to compare national and international policies, it required a lot of deep knowledge on the policies. Also, due to the independence of states on policy-making it was challenging to find national patterns.

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After the given challenges, the final decision was to analyze individual cases of each given country.

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Some organizational actions were taken. The first one was the idea of a "Parking Lot" where we would all deposit topics which were not appropriate to the current discussion but were relevant to the overall project. The next important decision was to make a glossary.

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"Why a glossary?" - The countries reviewed by each sub-group have different types of governancy and public participation. After analyzing a few cases and policies, it was concluded that the power given to the government and to the people was very different on each nation, therefore affecting how each situation would be dealt with. Some specifities started calling attention, like protest or the request for review of the law. The decision of making a glossary intended to store all these alternative actions, since they can affect the vulnerability or resilience of a policy according to each situation.

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After taking a closer look at specific cases of each country, the following conclusions were taken:

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On week 06 all the sub-groups were dismantled and everyone focused on analyzing the situation of UK and Brexit, as well as its effects over European Union. Our project team started then the preparation for the excursion to Liverpool, to attend the seminar "Implications of Brexit for Environmental Assesment in the UK", Organised by IAIA Ireland-UK Branch and Environmental Assessment & Management Research Centre. 

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Follow-up on preparation for excursion.

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Excursion week.​

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During Week 09 it was defined that our project would have different outputs for the end of the semester. Our team was then divided into the following sub-groups: Web-magazine, Webpage and Academic Paper.

Meanwhile, our Glossary group continued working on adding terms and editing the glossary.