Teaching Responsibilities

• FOR 2554 Nature and American Values
• FOR 4444 Integrated Forest Resource Management

Selected Research Activities

• Beyond Environmental Fundamentalism: Globalization, urbanization, and decentralization have created a new context for natural resource conservation. A new class of environmental problems requires new solutions. They are exasperated by the traditional tensions that erupt as preservation activists, wise use advocates, and science-based professions collide. Successful solutions and strategies require finding common ground—higher ground—that emerge when we abandon environmental fundamentalism. These issues are explored in Infinite Nature (http://publicecology.org/infinitenature/index.html)
• Forest Sustainability: The forests have new owners and new neighbors, and society increasingly values the services forests provide; not just timber and taxes, but water, carbon sequestration, solitude, medicinal herbs, scenery, and community identity. Globalization is siphoning away industry and management expertise from our native forests. Science wars are diminishing professional influence and rational planning. We risk losing forests and the ability to management them. I have an active research program investigating the triple bottom line of forest management: economic development, environmental sustainability, community vitality. Also I advise the Southern Urban Wildland Interface Council [http://www.interfacesouth.org/index.html], the Model Forestry Policy Program (http://www.mfpp.org/) and the Forest Issues Working Group (http://www.publicecology.org/fiwg/about.html) that all have stakes in keeping forests forested and healthy. I am also actively promoting the emergent LandCare movement and teach a graduate class in Constructing Sustainability.
• Restoration Ecology: I'm involved in several ecological restoration projects, typically emphasizing social factors that lead to successful and sustained restoration. Most recently I've begun a study of community based ecological restoration following forest fire that involves negotiating Desired Future Conditions and FRCC. A description of the Island Press book I co-edited with Paul Gobster can be found at: http://www.islandpress.org/books/index.html
• Public Ecology Project (PEP): PEP is a non-profit program founded in 2000. Our work seeks to empower members of local communities and global society to envision a sustainable and desirable future, one where environmental quality and the quality of life are improved for all people in all places. To accomplish this goal, we produce educational publications, public forums, and related programs designed to help people make informed and ethical decisions about nature, science, and society in the twenty-first century. http://publicecology.org/
• Learning Networks: We are examining the tremendous potential of learning networks as a conservation strategy to build social capacity, resolve conflict, develop management plans, and implement land change. Bruce Goldstein in Environmental Planning at Virginia Tech is leading this research effort funded by The Nature Conservancy and the US Forest Service.
• Virginia Natural Resources Leadership Institute. I am a graduate of this program that promotes collaborative problem solving of natural resource issues important to community sustainability. http://www.virginia.edu/ien/VNRLI_home.html

Selected Publications

• Goldstein, B. and Hull, R.B. 2007. Socially Explicit Fire Regimes.  Society and Natural Resources 21 (1)

• Robertson, D Hull, RB, Moles, J, et al. 2007.   Landcare in America.  In  D. Catacutan & C. Neely (Eds) Landcare: Local Action-Global Progress. Landcare International. Adams Printers Pty Ltd. Melbourne, Australia

• Hull, R.B (2006). Rene Dubos, Friend of the Good Earth.  Bioscience 56 (10): 852-853
• Hull, R.B.; Visser, Rien; Ashton, S; others. 2006. Interface Forest Management Professional Development. In: M Monore (ed). Toolbox for Managing Interface Forests. US Forest Service, Southern Forest Experiment Station, Urban-wildland Interface Research Project, Gainesville, FL. http://www.interfacesouth.org/products/training/mod2.html
• Hull, R.B. 2006. Infinite Nature. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (http://publicecology.org/infinitenature/index.html)
• Kendra, Angelina; Hull, R. Bruce 2005. Motivations and Behaviors of New Forest Owners in Virginia. Forest Science, 51 (2): 142-154
• Bishop, Ian D., Hull, R.B. and Stock, C. 2005. Supporting personal world-views in an envisioning system. Environmental Modeling and Software, 20, 1459-1468.
• Hull, R.B., *Robertson, D.P., Buhyoff., G.J. 2004. Boutique Forestry: New forest practices in urbanizing landscapes. Journal of Forestry: 102 (1): 14-19.
• Hull, R.B. and Stewart, S.I. 2002. Social consequences of change in the wildland-urban interface forest. Pages 115-132 In Edward Macie and L. Annie. Hermenson (eds.). Human Influences on Forest Ecosystems: the Southern Wildland-Urban Interface Assessment. General Technical Report SRS-55. Asheville, NC" US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 159p. http://www.interfacesouth.org/assessment/view.html#
• Robertson, D.P. and Hull, R.B. 2003. Public ecology: an environmental science and policy for global society Environmental Science & Policy Volume 6, Issue 5, October 2003, Pages 399-410
• Robertson, D.P and Hull, R.B. 2003. Biocultural ecology: exploring the social construction of the Southern Appalachian Ecosystem. Natural Areas Journal 23(2): 180-189.
• Hull, R. B., D. P. Robertson, and G. J. Buhyoff. 2003. Beyond the interventionist-preservationist duality. Conservation Ecology 7(1): r4. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol7/iss1/resp4
• R. Bruce Hull, David Richert, Erin Seekamp, David Robertson, Gregory J. Buhyoff. 2003. Understandings of Environmental Quality: Ambiguities and Values Held by Environmental Professionals. Environmental Management 31(1): 1-13. http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/00267/tocs/t3031001.html
• Hull, R. B., D. P. Robertson, D. Richert, E. Seekamp, and G. J. Buhyoff. 2002. Assumptions about ecological scale and nature knowing best hiding in environmental decisions. Conservation Ecology 6(2): 12. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss2/art12
• Hull, R.B., Robertson, D., and Kendra, A. 2001. Public understandings of nature: a case study of local knowledge about 'natural' forest conditions. Society and Natural Resources 14: 325-340.
• Robertson, D. and Hull, R.B. 2001. Which Nature? A Case Study of Whitetop Mountain. Landscape Journal 20: 1-10.
• Robertson, D. and Hull, R. B. 2001. Beyond Biology: Toward a More Public Ecology for Conservation. Conservation Biology 15(4): 970-979.
• Hull, R. B. and Gobster, P. 2000. The human dimensions of successful restoration projects. Journal of Forestry. 98(8): 32-36
• Gobster, Paul and Hull, R. Bruce. 2000 (eds) Restoring Nature: Perspectives from Humanities and Social Sciences. Washington D.C.: Island Press.
• Hull, R.B., Robertson, D, Buhyoff, G. and Kendra, A. 2000. What are We Hiding Behind the Visual Buffer Strips? Forest Aesthetics Reconsidered. Journal of Forestry. 98(7): 32-36
• Hull, R.B. 2000. Moving Beyond the Romantic Biases in Natural Areas Recreation. Journal of Leisure Research. 32(1): 54-57
• Dedrick, J.P., Hall, T.E., Hull, R.B., and Johnson, J.E. 2000. The Forest Bank: An Experiment in Managing Fragmented Forests. Journal of Forestry 98 (3): 22-25.