We are bereft with the loss of Pete Brosius, our cherished colleague, friend, and founder of CICR. Pete passed away peacefully on July 29, 2026.
Pete was a compass that pointed toward truth, and he was undaunted by the obstacles and uneven terrain along that course. He was the inspiration and founder of the Center for Integrative Conservation Research and the Integrative Conservation PhD program.
One of Pete’s defining characteristics was his commitment to giving full voice and respect to different ways of understanding the world and looking at problems, in all their complexity. This commitment was concretized through work under a grant from the MacArthur foundation, Advancing Conservation in a Social Context. This project, which sought to more deeply integrate social sciences in conservation scholarship and practice, brought together conservation professionals from different disciplines. There, as parties failed to build understanding across boundaries, and instead fell back to established habits of thought, Pete observed and challenged the recurring tendency to dismiss those who thought differently. Out of that experience came his staunch commitment to create and hold open spaces for differences in perspective to be acknowledged, respected, and ultimately embraced as a more robust platform for conservation decision making.
This became the founding vision for CICR, and for the ICON program as a unique program that roots its training in those values. In CICR projects, activities, and governance, Pete’s spirit of proactively defending and honoring pluralistic perspectives is upheld and pursued as an objective in itself. And in the curriculum for the ICON PhD program, very intentional training in the founding principles of pluralism, reflexivity, complexity, and context serves to empower students to see beyond their own perspectives and work more justly and inclusively on conservation and sustainability challenges. In so doing, Pete’s vision and its fruition through CICR and ICON have created new awareness and instilled new values that have shaped the careers of countless students and peers.
We write these reflections as two such peers who keenly feel Pete’s influence. We are faculty members from different points on the social-ecological spectrum, who were both hired in 2012 to be contributing faculty to CICR and the ICON program, and eventually became Pete’s successors as Directors of CICR. We feel his presence, wisdom, and tenacity throughout the work we do with CICR and ICON, and we see it reflected in one another. Daily, Lizzie is inspired by the continuity of Pete’s tenacity that she sees in Laura, who transforms and manifests Pete’s vision with bold initiatives that push comfort zones and drill into the heart of the institutional and political obstacles that stand in the way of environmental justice. Laura, too, has watched as Pete’s founding vision for CICR has served as a guiding compass for Lizzie’s career, as she upholds these principles on a daily basis – – embodying and defending pluralistic dialogue and inquiry, expanding her sensibilities and expertise deep into the social sciences and arts, and honing the tools of collaborative dialogue to expertly guide CICR, ICON and a new generation of scholars. What a pleasure it is to also see Pete’s vision and influence reflected in our colleagues across campus and all of the ICON PhD students as they grow to embrace these principles in their own unique ways.
When Pete embarked on this intellectual journey, there was far less recognition of the importance of integrating widely divergent perspectives in conservation and environmental work. In Pete, we had an ardent champion. Simplifying matters for convenience was not a part of his journey. Failing to acknowledge different perspectives was not an option. His leadership was a vital catalyst for the robust culture of interdisciplinarity at UGA today, which has helped us emerge as a distinctive hub of environmental innovation.
Pete’s obituary can be read at: https://www.lordandstephens.com/obituaries/james-brosius
With sorrow,
Lizzie King and Laura German