October 18, 2017: UBC Green College
Hope in the Anthropocene Series
Speaker: John Reganold

October 18, 2017: UBC Green College
Hope in the Anthropocene Series
Speaker: John Reganold

SUSTAINABLE FARMING SYSTEMS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

  • John Reganold, Regents Professor of Soil Science and Agroecology at Washington State University
    Coach House, Green College, UBC (6201 Cecil Green Park Road)
    Wednesday, October 18, 5-6:30 pm
    in the series
    Hope in the Anthropocene: Sustainability Solutions and Inspirations 
  • Agriculture is at a critical juncture. To feed a growing world population, producing adequate crop yields is vital but only one of four main goals that must be met for agriculture to be sustainable. The other three are enhancing the environment, making farming financially viable, and contributing to the well-being of farmers and their communities. Conventional farming systems have provided increasing supplies of food and other products, but often at the expense of the other three sustainability goals. Alternative systems, such as organic, integrated, and conservation farming, better blend production, environment, and socio-economic objectives. Yet no one of these systems alone will produce enough food to sustainably feed the planet. Rather, a blend of these innovative farming approaches is needed for future global food and ecosystem security.
    John will also be speaking on Thursday, October 19 in the IRES Seminar Series.  Click here for more details. 

    Hope in the Anthropocene is co-sponsored by the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at UBC.

 
Photo credit: StateofIsrael from flickr/Creative Commons

October 12, 2017: IRES Student Seminar
Speakers: Adrian Semmelink and Elaine Hsiao

IRES Seminar Series

Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)

Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall

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Adrian Semmelink

BIO:

Adrian is currently pursuing a M.Sc. under the guidance of Dr. Kai Chan, Dr. Terre Satterfield and Dr. Deborah Henderson (Kwantlen Polytechnic University). He holds a dual degree with an honours in environmental sciences and a major in sociology from UBC. Adrian has agricultural experience in South Africa and British Columbia. As a research assistant, he has worked on projects including spider socialization, bird song hybridization, and for the CHAN’s Lab reviews of ecosystem services and environmental assessments. Most recently, Adrian worked for the Stewardship Centre for British Columbia profiling farmers who demonstrate excellence in environmental stewardship. 

Click link for Adrian’s bio: https://ires.ubc.ca/person/adrian-semmelink/
There is no video available for this seminar.

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Elaine Hsiao:

 

TALK TITLE:

“Protecting Place, People and Peace: A Critical Socio-Legal Review of Transboundary Protected Areas”

 

ABSTRACT:

Examples of transboundary natural resources governance have been proliferating around the planet as the need to reconcile environmental management across common borders grows more urgent.  At best, they are championed as models of ecological peacebuilding and conflict resolution; at worst, they are criticized for their heavy-handed (top-down, externally-influenced and sometimes coercive) and neoliberal conservation strategies.  Transboundary protected areas (TBPAs) are just one mechanism through which cross-border environmental governance occurs, with only some being officially dedicated to peace.  This study looks at how TBPA legal agreements facilitate peace and conflict transformation, helping to answer the question of whether or not TBPAs are being effectively designed as platforms for peace and conflict resolution.  Initial results based on a survey of TBPA practitioners reflecting their experiences in implementing TBPA agreements and how these instruments can or have not served to facilitate conflict resolution on-the-ground, as well as case studies from three borders of Uganda provide insights into the practice and pragmatics of TBPAs as vehicles for conflict transformation and peace.

 

BIO:

Elaine Hsiao is an interdisciplinary legal scholar, specializing in transboundary conservation, conflict, and environmental peacebuilding. She has worked with transboundary protected areas initiatives and publications, developed a service-learning expedition in Parque Internacional La Amistad, co-directed/produced a documentary film for “Transcending Boundaries,” and passed resolutions on the environment, peace and conflict at IUCN and WILD Congresses. She represented the Permanent Mission of the Union of Comoros at the UN in climate change issues, received a Fulbright to Uganda (2010-2011) and currently, is the Co-Chair of the IUCN CEESP Theme on Environment and Peace. Elaine holds a JD and LLM in International and Environmental Law from Pace Law School, where she remains a Fellow, Specializing in Protected Areas at the Global Center for Environmental Legal Studies.

Click link for Elaine’s bio: https://ires.ubc.ca/person/elaine-hsiao/

 

Video of presentation:

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Chris Luczkow from flickr/ Creative Commons

IRES welcomes new Associate Professor, David Boyd!

A very warm welcome to David Boyd, who will be joining IRES as a new Associate Professor starting July 1, 2017!

To learn more about his profile and research interests, please visit his bio here.

David Boyd will be teaching a course in the upcoming academic year (GPP 507).  For your information, below is an abstract for the course.

GPP 507

Environmental Law and Policy 

Abstract:

This course will provide a practical and lively overview of how environmental law and policy is created, implemented, and enforced at the international, national, and sub-national levels. Students will learn about the evolution of environmental law and policy, legal institutions, and the major areas of law that relate to ecological sustainability (e.g. constitutional law, international law, municipal law, human rights, Indigenous law). The course will examine and critique the substantive laws, principles, and policies dealing with specific issues such as pollution, toxic substances, water, climate change, environmental assessment, and biological diversity. A central theme will be the differences between law and policy on paper and in practice. Students will be expected to engage in critical thinking about the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of laws, policies, and institutions related to environmental protection, while considering the broader ecological, political, social, and economic context.

After actively participating in this course, students will be able to:

  • articulate the role of laws, policies, actors, and institutions in addressing environmental problems;
  • think critically about ways in which environmental law and policy can be used to: solve environmental problems at the least possible cost to society while concurrently alleviating environmental injustices and promoting human rights; identify the barriers that prevent environmental law and policy from achieving sustainable outcomes;
  • conduct comparative analyses of environmental laws from countries all over the world; and
  • participate more effectively in environmental policy-making and decision-making.

 

RES PhD candidate Michael Lathuillière co-authored a new publication!

RES PhD candidate Michael Lathuillière has co-authored a new publication led by Dr. Anne-Marie Boulay entitled “The WULCA consensus characterization model for water scarcity footprints: assessing impacts of water consumption based on available water remaining (AWARE)” in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. The paper constitutes an official recommendation to the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. Congratulations indeed!

The paper can be found here:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-017-1333-8/fulltext.html

cropped-Mike.jpg

Michael Lathuillière

 

Photo credit: Goultard from flickr/Creative Commons

RES MSc student Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon co-authored a new publication!

RES MSc student Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon co-authored a new publication with Dr. Jonah Busch, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development. The publication is entitled “What Drives Deforestation and What Stops It? A Meta-Analysis” and published on Review of Environmental Economics and Policy. 

Much congratulations from all of us at IRES!

The article can be found here:

https://academic.oup.com/reep/article/11/1/3/3066302/What-Drives-Deforestation-and-What-Stops-It-A?guestAccessKey=1ae513e9-a7f4-40ca-b37d-4813c2064d0b

Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon

October 5, 2017: IRES Faculty Seminar
Speaker: Sean Smukler

IRES Seminar Series

Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)

Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall

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It’s time to get dirty: Managing agricultural soils for multiple ecosystem services

ABSTRACT:  Healthy agricultural soil is a critical component for ensuring the availability of a wide range of ecosystem services. Agriculture dominates roughly 40% of the terrestrial ice-free surface of our planet making farmers one of the primary stewards of soil.  Despite ample evidence that soil mismanagement has been clearly linked to the decline of previous civilizations, our society largely neglects soils and degradation continues unabated in many parts of the world.  In this presentation, I will discuss the relationship between soil management and multiple ecosystem services.  I will share results from some of the recent studies I have been involved in to better understand how farmers are or could be managing their soil for these services, in both temperate and tropical regions, from the field to the landscape scale.

This seminar will not be filmed.

BIO: Sean Smukler is an Assistant Professor in Applied Biology and Soil Science and the Junior Chair, Agriculture and the Environment, for the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. His research currently focuses on evaluating farming practices that can enhance ecological functions to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture while at the same time improve farm climate change adaptation capacity. Sean received a PhD in Ecology from the University of California, Davis where he also did his undergraduate studies. He holds a MSc in Forest Soils from the University of Washington, Seattle. Sean is also an IRES Faculty Associate.

To read more about Sean visit: https://ires.ubc.ca/person/sean-smukler/ 

IRES welcomes new Adjunct Professor, Steven Conrad!

A very warm welcome to Steven Conrad, who has joined IRES as a new Adjunct Professor!

To learn more about his profile and research interests, please visit his bio here.

Conrad was recently a guest on the CBC radio broadcast of The Current Monday morning, where he discussed responding to Justin Trudeau’s call to ‘rebuild better‘ following flooding events and rebuilding infrastructure in response to climate change.

The article can be found here: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-15-2017-1.4112604/why-rebuild-after-flood-if-it-s-likely-to-happen-again-asks-climatologist-1.4112612

The full audio can be found here: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html?autoPlay=true&mediaIds=944105539653

RES PhD Candidate Justin Ritchie recently featured on Bloomberg

RES PhD Candidate Justin Ritchie has recently been featured on a Bloomberg article referencing his recently published paper (co-authored with IRES faculty Hadi Dowlatabadi), “The 1000 GtC coal question: Are cases of vastly expanded future coal combustion still plausible?” on Energy Economics.

Congratulations indeed!

Please see the following for the Bloomberg article:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-24/misleading-coal-estimates-may-have-skewed-climate-projections

RES PhD Candidate Justin Ritchie

 

Jeffrey Beall from flickr/Creative Commons

New publication by IRES Postdoctoral Fellow Nathan Bennett, IRES faculty Terre Satterfield and RES graduate Maery Kaplan-Hallam

A paper co-authored by IRES Postdoctoral Fellow Nathan Bennett, IRES faculty Terre Satterfield and May 2017 RES MA graduate Maery Kaplan-Hallam entitled  “An appeal for a code of conduct for marine conservation” was recently published on Marine Policy.

Reference: Bennett, N.J., Teh, L., Ota, Y., Christie, P., Ayers, A., Day, J.C., Franks, P., Gill, D., Gruby, R.L., Kittinger, J.N., Koehn, J.Z., Lewis, N., Parks, J., Vierros, M., Whitty, T.S., Wilhelm, A., Wright, K., Aburto, J.A., Finkbeiner, E.M., Gaymer, C.F., Govan, H., Gray, N., Jarvis, R.M., Kaplan-Hallam, M. & Satterfield, T. (2017). An appeal for a code of conduct for marine conservation. Marine Policy, 81, 411–418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.03.035 [Open Access]

Abstract: Marine conservation actions are promoted to conserve natural values and support human wellbeing. Yet the quality of governance processes and the social consequences of some marine conservation initiatives have been the subject of critique and even human rights complaints. These types of governance and social issues may jeopardize the legitimacy of, support for and long-term effectiveness of marine conservation. Thus, we argue that a clearly articulated and comprehensive set of social standards – a code of conduct – is needed to guide marine conservation. In this paper, we draw on the results of an expert meeting and scoping review to present key principles that might be taken into account in a code of conduct, to propose a draft set of foundational elements for inclusion in a code of conduct, to discuss the benefits and challenges of such a document, and to propose next steps to develop and facilitate the uptake of a broadly applicable code of conduct within the marine conservation community. The objectives of developing such a code of conduct are to promote fair conservation governance and decision-making, socially just conservation actions and outcomes, and accountable conservation practitioners and organizations. The uptake and implementation of a code of conduct would enable marine conservation to be both socially acceptable and ecologically effective, thereby contributing to a truly sustainable ocean.

Link to article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X17300672

Additional information:

Policy brief: An appeal for a code of conduct for marine conservation (Link to PDF)

Public domain photo

Aaron Aguirre

Aaron Aguirre

MSc Student
IRES Student Society Social Coordinator, 2023-2024

Contact Details

aguirr14[at]gmail[dot]com

Research Bio

Aaron is an MSc student in the CHANS and M2L2 Labs interested in understanding how urban land-use impacts bat abundance and diversity across Metro Vancouver. They have several years of experience working hands-on with wildlife throughout the United States including research projects aimed at the study and conservation of the world’s only flying mammals. For their research, Aaron will be investigating where bats are abundant across the Metro Vancouver region as well as how they are using landscape features across urban gradients. It is their hope that this research will be able to inform bat conservation with regards to land development in addition to providing crucial insights on the movement, behavior, and habitat selection of bats as the inevitable spread of white-nose syndrome continues.