The INEDES Environmental Clinic: an Interdisciplinary field at the service of the community in the city of Luján, in Argentina

Abstract

This paper aims to characterize the work dynamics of an environmental clinic, created in October 2019, at the Institute of Ecology and Sustainable Development (INEDES), which is a novel experience at the national level, in Argentina. This clinic is conformed by a group of specialists from different disciplines related to the environment, with the aim of providing the community with guidance for the search for solutions related to the problems that arise in the field of urban, industrial and / or rural ecosystems. The clinic is not a research area, although the problems gave rise to several proposals for research projects, some of them underway. The inquiries received are of three kinds: 1) Laboratory or biological techniques, 2) environmental regulatory analysis, and 3) complex problems (i.e. access to water) that require the concurrence of various points of view. In this way, an interdisciplinary approach is necessarily incorporated in the answers that are prepared for the reports since this approach is necessary to attend to the multiplicity of environmental problems that affect the inhabitants. This type of consultation contributes to environmental monitoring and access to information about various problems and to analyse possible solutions to face them. Therefore, the existence of environmental clinics can help to promote greater participation by society in the search for solutions to environmental conflicts of different degrees.