Speakers: Eric Lambin, Peter Deadman, Raymond Cabrera, and Christophe Le Page
Speaker #1: Professor Eric Lambin of the University of Louvain and Stanford University discusses the mechanisms through which economic globalization increasingly drives land use change and uses case studies to illustrate the conditions under which local land use policies are effective in reducing conversion of natural ecosystems.
Speakers #2 and #3: Raymond Cabrera and Peter Deadman explore the current challenges facing computational research in land use science, with a focus on agent-based models of land-use change in the Amazon rainforest.
Speaker #4: Christophe Le Page of the Centre for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development discusses his research on the conception and implementation of a companion modelling (ComMod) process that was used to mediate land use conflicts in Nan province, Thailand. This process was successful in reconciling conflicts between stakeholder groups and facilitated the joint adoption of a common action plan relying on an experiment to assess the management of Brachiaria ruziziensis pastures under highland environmental conditions.