November 1, 2018: IRES Faculty Seminar with Dr. Amanda Giang
IRES Seminar Series
Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)
Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall
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Policy Evaluation Problems: Evaluating the effectiveness of a global mercury treaty
Abstract: The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global environmental agreement that aims to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic mercury pollution, entered into force in August 2017. As the Convention shifts into its implementation phase, critical questions for mercury science and governance are: Will the Convention be effective at protecting human health and the environment? And how will we know? This talk will present preliminary research on strategies to evaluate the effectiveness of global-scale mercury policy given a changing, uncertain, and multi-stakeholder world. It considers both technical (e.g., what to monitor and where) and social (e.g., actors, institutions, norms) dimensions of the effectiveness evaluation challenge. Finally, it will explore how insights from the Minamata Convention may inform evaluation processes for other global environmental agreements, such as the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement.
This seminar will not be filmed.
Dr. Amanda Giang
Assistant Professor, IRES and Department of Mechanical Engineering
Bio: Amanda Giang is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UBC. Her research address challenges at the interface of environmental modelling and policy through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on air pollution and toxic chemicals. Combining integrated modelling and qualitative approaches, she is interested in understanding how environmental assessment processes can better empower communities and inform policy decision-making. She received a PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT, a MS in Technology and Policy from MIT, and a BASc in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto.
Website: www.agiang.com
Photo Credit: Rocio Lopez, IRES PhD Student
October 25, 2018: IRES Professional Development Seminar with Dr. Justin Ritchie & Dr. David Shiffman
IRES Seminar Series
Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)
Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall
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This seminar will not be filmed.
Communicating our research through creative media
Abstract:
Academics in general and scientists in particular are increasingly getting involved in creative media to communicate and engage others in their consequential work. In this seminar, we will hear from researchers and media people who have successfully built bridges between research and creative media through businesses, projects, and social media. They will share their meaningful and meaningless experiences in the science media space.
Dr. David Shiffman
Bio:
Dr. David Shiffman is a Liber Ero Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Conservation Biology at SFU, where he studies shark conservation policy. He is also an award-winning science communicator, and the most-followed scientist on social media in British Columbia. Follow him on twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @WhySharksMatter, where he’s always happy to answer any questions that anyone has about sharks.
Dr. Justin Ritchie
Bio:
Dr. Justin Ritchie is an energy systems researcher at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. His PhD work on energy and climate economics has been published in an array of peer-reviewed journals that include Environmental Research Letters, Energy, Energy Economics, and Ecological Economics.
Photo Credit: Susanna Klassen, IRES PhD Student
October 18, 2018: IRES Faculty Seminar with Robin Harder
IRES Seminar Series
Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)
Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall
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Five often overlooked aspects of closing nutrient cycles from human excreta to food and farming systems
Abstract:
Concerns about eutrophication and future fertilizer availability have emphasized the need for better nutrient management along the entire food chain from agriculture and food processing to consumers and waste management. This includes comprehensive recycling of nutrients contained in human excreta to agriculture. With the shift from perceiving human excreta and sewage as waste to recognizing their value as resource, a wealth of treatment options has unfolded over the last decades. Although treatment renders a range of fertilizer products for use in agricultural production, technology development has rarely been informed by the needs of specific forms of agricultural production. I will explore what it means for the design and evaluation of future human excreta management to integrate considerations from food and farming systems, by outlining five aspects that are at risk of being overlooked and would deserve more attention.
Robin Harder
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Bio:
Robin Harder is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of British Columbia and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. His current research interest is how future human excreta management might best support farming systems that seek to maintain long-term soil health, and which quantitative assessment tools are adequate to guide nutrient recycling towards best supporting soil and food security. Robin has a background in urban water management and environmental systems analysis. He received his doctoral degree from Chalmers University of Technology, with a MSc in Sanitary Engineering from TU Delft and a BSc in Civil Engineering from ETH Zurich.
Chalmers: https://www.chalmers.se/en/staff/Pages/robin-harder.aspx
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinharder/
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robin_Harder
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Photo Credits: Susanna Klassen, IRES PhD Candidate
November 8, 2018: Seminar with Nathan Bendriem & Weildler Guerra Curvelo
IRES Seminar Series
Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)
Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall
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Economic Analysis of Genomic Technologies used to Enhance Coho Broodstock
Abstract:
The selection of salmon broodstock can enhance certain biological traits over various generations and is made possible via the use of genomic technologies. Important information related to flesh quality and colour, disease resistance, growth rate, and feed conversion ratio, has been collected for coho salmon (Onchorhynchus kitsutch) and may be applied to breeding programs in British Columbia. Marker assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection (GS) are two technologies that are useful in determining breeders based on genes directly controlling performance traits, rather than the phenotypic profile of the salmon. This study aims to quantify the net present value of these technologies, applied to coho salmon broodstock. I estimate the value of these genomic technologies by modifying the growth rate, mortality, flesh quality, and feed conversion ratio, and measure the change in net present value of the coho production. Results indicate that the value of the genomic technologies is around $15,000 per metric tonne of coho produced.
Nathan Bendriem
RES MSc Student
Bio:
Nathan is a Master’s student in the RES program and part of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit in the Institute of Oceans and Fisheries. His research focuses on conducting an economic valuation of genomic-based technologies applied to coho salmon fisheries and aquaculture. Prior to moving to Vancouver, Nathan completed his Bachelor’s of Arts in Marine Affairs and Policy at the University of Miami in Florida. He took a year off after graduating and worked with a non-profit organization called the Billfish Foundation and spent a couple of months working at NOAA as a research assistant.
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Wayuu Ontology: a relationship between time, Wayuu people, and the non-human world
Abstract:
The Indigenous Wayuu people are an ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula located in the northernmost part of Colombia and northwest of Venezuela. In the Wayuu worldview there are two notions of time: 1) The Wayuu sumaiiwa (or primordial order, origins of the world and trans-historic time), and 2) the A’wanajawaa (or transformative time). The relationships between the two notions of time transcend the Wayuu people in their worldview as they extend to the non-human world, including plants and non-human animals. This talk explores the main research question: How does the “person” get constructed in the contemporaneous Wayuu people and which other non-human beings are part of such construction? This talk would be a brief introduction to Weildler’s doctoral thesis, and the main purpose is to connect with other scholars interested in Indigenous worldviews.
Weildler Guerra Curvelo
Visiting Scholar
Bio:
Weildler Guerra Curvelo is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). At UBC, he is a Visiting Scholar with Professor Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (School of Social Work) for this semester. Weildler has an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in Anthropology from Universidad de los Andes. He is and Indigenous Wayuu (an ethnic group from northern Colombia) from the Uliana Clan. Through his work, Weildler has explored the topics of maritime anthropology, cultural history of the sea, and in his doctoral dissertation he documents the Wayuu ontology and the relationship between the Wayuu people, time, and non-human others. He has authored multiple books and has served as a consultant and politician advocating for Indigenous Peoples’ cultural heritage protection. In 2017 he was appointed by former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos as the interim governor of the Guajira province. Currently he is in charge of managing the Cultural Center of the Colombian National Bank in San Andrés (Banco Nacional de la República).
Photo Credit: Maggie Low, IRES PhD Candidate
Reflections from Mayor Gregor Robertson, City of Vancouver
Join us for an informal conversation reflecting on Gregor Robertson’s decade as Mayor of Vancouver. This will be followed by Q&A so come prepared with your questions. This event is hosted by Professor David Boyd (School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability) and is part of SPPGA’s Policy in Practice series.
Wednesday, October 3
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Liu Institute for Global Issues – Multipurpose Room
Refreshments provided
Bio: In November 2014, Gregor Robertson was re-elected to a third term as Mayor of Vancouver to continue building on the progress achieved in the first six years of office.
Mayor Robertson spearheaded the creation of the city’s first comprehensive Economic Action Strategy, and is committed to growing a sustainable and thriving economy in Vancouver focused on high-growth sectors like digital media, clean technology and renewable energy. Vancouver now leads Canada in economic growth, and is forecast by the Conference Board of Canada to lead Canadian cities in growth through to 2019.
Building on the successful legacy of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Mayor Robertson has established Vancouver internationally as the Green Capital — a City where going green is good for business. He has also overseen the creation and implementation of the award-winning Greenest City 2020 Action Plan that aims to make Vancouver an environmental leader in everything from energy efficiency and waste reduction to clean air and local food. The Mayor has also been a consistent advocate for new investment in rapid transit with a subway on Vancouver’s UBC-Broadway corridor, BC’s second-largest employment centre and the busiest bus corridor in North America.
Under Mayor Robertson’s leadership, Vancouver continues to rank as one of the most livable cities in the world, with one of the most competitive environments for attracting new jobs and investment. The City of Vancouver has also been named the Most Innovative Organization in the province by BC Business Magazine for its open data initiative.
He has made affordable housing a top priority, with an aggressive, ten-year plan to provide thousands of affordable housing units for Vancouverites of all ages, while ensuring that existing affordable housing is protected. Since 2009, City policies and partnerships have leveraged 10,000 new units of housing geared to low and middle income households, ranging from new social and supportive housing, to new laneway, secondary suite, and market rental homes.
Prior to entering politics, Gregor co-founded Happy Planet, a socially responsible company that produces organic juices and promotes health and nutrition. He also previously represented Vancouver-Fairview as a Member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly.
Co-hosted by: School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability.
IRES welcomes Interim Director Navin Ramankutty
Please welcome Navin Ramankutty who will be Interim Director for IRES until July 2019.
Navin Ramankutty is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Change and Food Security at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. His research program aims to understand how humans use and modify the Earth’s land surface for agriculture and its implications for the global environment. Using global Earth observations and numerical ecosystem models, his research aims to find solutions to the problem of feeding humanity with minimal global environmental footprint. He contributed to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report and to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was an editor of the journal Global Food Security and Global Ecology and Biogeography, and is an Associate Editor of Environmental Research Letters. He is a Leopold Leadership Fellow.
How to conserve half the planet without going hungry
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Zia Mehrabi, University of British Columbia; Erle C. Ellis, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Navin Ramankutty, University of British Columbia
Every day there are roughly 386,000 new mouths to feed, and in that same 24 hours, scientists estimate between one and 100 species will go extinct. That’s it. Lost forever.
To deal with the biodiversity crisis we need to find a way to give nature more space — habitat loss is a key factor driving these extinctions. But how would this affect our food supplies?
New research, published in Nature Sustainability, found it could mean we lose a lot of food — but exactly how much really depends on how we choose to give nature that space. Doing it right could mean rethinking how we do agriculture and conservation altogether.
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A fair deal
OK, but how much space are we talking about here?
There have been numbers flying around since the early 1990s. Some researchers say a quarter of all the space on earth, while others say three-quarters of all land and sea. Those in the middle ground, however, seem to suggest one half.
Leading scientists are increasingly endorsing the figure, including natural scientist E.O. Wilson, who wrote a book on it, and the former chief scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, Eric Dinerstein. These individuals are mobilizing funds, researchers, computing power and social capital to see what it takes to achieve this vision — through their organizations, The Half-Earth Project and Nature Needs Half.
The idea might seem crazy, but then again, maybe we need crazy ideas to get us to think about the better world we might be able to create.
And there is something about handing over half of the planet to nature that has an air of fairness to it — well, on the side of nature at least.
The global agricultural footprint
The reality is, most people would likely want to help save other species too (aside maybe from mosquitoes and some other pesky creatures). The upside seems massive and obvious — not in the least that our children will be able to enjoy these beautiful beings for generations to come.
But is it possible to conserve so much land and still feed everyone?
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Agriculture and settlements already cover 37 per cent of the Earth’s ice-free land, so it’s difficult to see how we could set aside half the planet in a way that honours the needs of other species, without losing some of our agricultural lands.
Dinerstein and his colleagues found that some locations, such as the Midwest United States produce so much food that it would be “delusional” to even suggest returning them to nature.
But previous research didn’t quantify or map the scale of these trade-offs at a fine enough resolution to identify what’s really at stake.
Feeding people and conserving species
Our new research did just that.
It found that conserving habitats for other species could cost up to 29 per cent of the calories we currently produce from our food crops. But it also found that these food losses can be minimized to as little as three per cent depending on how that land is allocated to conservation.
If people manage landscapes so they are shared between agriculture and nature conservation — and make agricultural landscapes more kind to other species — it may bring effective results while avoiding large losses in food availability.
The trick here is making our agricultural landscapes less hostile to other life. This is no small ask.
Mehrabi, Ellis, and Ramankutty 2018
At the country scale, the study identified places where food losses would be large, including India (22 per cent) and China (12 per cent). These two countries have the greatest number of undernourished people on the planet, 195 million and 134 million respectively. It also identified other areas, such as in Indonesia, that may be less available for conservation than previously thought.
Clearly, conflicts between nature and agriculture need to be navigated carefully. Protecting the world’s most vulnerable, malnourished and food insecure populations must remain a priority. And synergies between conservation and poverty reduction need to be the primary focus.
Large potential co-benefits
But it isn’t all bad news.
The study also showed that giving half the planet to nature could increase temperate and tropical forest cover by 30 to 40 per cent, which would help tackle climate change and so likely reduce the agricultural losses from extreme weather.
What’s more, giving nature space might increase aspects of biodiversity important for crop yields like bees — boosting the amount of food we can produce in a given area — and help to offset some of the losses that might come from conservation.
Paula Ehrlich, the president and CEO of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation and head of the Half-Earth Project, shared her thoughts on the scientific study:
“Identifying where conservation areas can protect the most species is key to reversing the species extinction crisis and ensuring a healthy planet for all of life, including people. Once identified, conservation protections must integrate into their planning and management systems the cultures and economies of Indigenous peoples, who are de facto the original conservationists.”
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There can be little doubt that the idea of giving half the planet back to nature is visionary and aspirational. We think these new findings have important implications for how humans see their needs against those of other species.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Carly Vynne Baker and Eric Dinerstein to the writing of this article, and Paula Ehrlich for her comments.
Zia Mehrabi, Research Associate, University of British Columbia; Erle C. Ellis, Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Navin Ramankutty, Professor, University of British Columbia
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.