ECGG PhD candidates Kaitlyn Rathwell (@kjrathwell) and Steven Alexander (@salexander_11) are organizing a workshop on social media for young scholars. See poster and info below. We hope to see you there on 10th January 2013!
A recent paper by Prateep Nayak (ECGG researcher and Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow) and Fikret Berkes offers an empirical perspective on how changes at local and regional scales trickle upwards to influence sustainability at higher scales. The paper is a reminder to consider social-ecological feedback across scales as a two-way process.
A cadre of great new researchers has joined the group: Dr. Prateep Nayak comes to ECGG as a prestigious Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow where he will work at the intersection of governance, thresholds and wellbeing, and with an emphasis on lagoon systems. Prateep graduated from the University of Manitoba (Natural Resources Institute) and brings a great deal of experience to the ECGG. He is a Trudeau Scholar and a past Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University’s Center for International Development. Learn more on Prateep.
A recent review paper in Conservation Letters outlines how greater awareness of key ideas and concepts from the environmental governance literature can help conservation managers and scientists participate more effectively in governance processes. Understanding how conservation practice is influenced by emergent hybrid and network governance arrangements is particularly important.
A new paper in Environmental Science and Policy looks at three different case studies from the perspective of how climate change adaptation research is conducted. The researchers, from the Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Environment Canada, Brock University and the Swedish Defence Research Agency examined projects in Sweden, Indonesia and Canada and concluded that “the choices made regarding different sense-making perspectives and research methods have more than academic interest; in fact, they significantly shape how the research projects inform policy and change processes.” Using a method to map project trajectories can inform the research project, not only from within the project itself, but also allow for cross-case study comparison.
Every four years the world’s leading natural scientists, resource managers, conservationists, economists, educators, and graduate students from around the globe gather under a single roof to share research findings and discuss all things to do with coral reefs.
This past week the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) was held in Cairns Australia and boasted over 1,500 presentations in 72 mini symposiums ranging from physiology and functional biodiversity, fish and fisheries, climate change and bleaching, social, economic and cultural perspectives, to the human impacts on coral reefs.
An ECGG-led editorial in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury argues for enhanced federal support for Arctic science given the rapid changes taking place, and commitment to governance arrangements led by northerners.
A new paper in WIREs Climate Change by Jennifer Fresque-Baxter and Derek Armitage outlines the contribution of place identity theory as a lens through which to systematically examine how person–place bonds influence climate change adaptation. This much needed typology is necessary to frame further empirical work on the subjective attributes of climate change adaptation.
A new paper by ECGG researcher Kaitlyn Rathwell and colleague Garry Peterson (Stockholm Resilience Centre) show how bridging organizations in densely settled agricultural watersheds can be positioned in social networks to bridge local initiatives done by single municipalities across whole watersheds. The paper, published in Ecology and Society, combines a social network analysis of the water quality management networks with a social-ecological analysis of variation in water management and ecosystem services across the Montérégie, an agricultural landscape near Montréal, Québec.
ECGG PhD candidate Mark Andrachuk has co-authored a paper with Barry Smit (University of Guelph) in Regional Environmental Change that assesses current and future vulnerability to climate change in the community of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. Drawing on a community-based vulnerability framework, the paper brings attention to the key aspects of community infrastructure, livelihoods and health that are affected by ongoing environmental and socio-economic changes. The paper also demonstrates the interplay between regional to global scale driving forces, local impacts, and the need for support from higher levels of government for effective adaptation planning.