January 28, 2021 (Thursday) 9:00-10:00 AM (JST)
About the Webinar
The world is facing a series of interconnected systemic threats resulting from anthropogenic pressures including long-term climate change, short and medium-term climate variability, rapid extinction rates and biodiversity loss, increased disease spread, social and political conflict, and many others. The impacts of these threats have already resulted in economic losses, biodiversity loss, and human migration. Moreover, future impacts are sufficiently dire to warrant calls by scientists, academics, and policy makers for safeguarding the world’s critical ecosystems that provide services upon which societies depend. Protected areas are critical tools for the management of natural resources and critical ecosystems. However, the ability of protected areas to safeguard our world’s critical ecosystems depends on identifying which governance regimes and management strategies enable these protected areas to deliver social and environmental dividends. A team of researchers from Columbia University discussed ongoing work that examines the drivers of social and environmental sustainability in protected area management. They presented a conceptual model for integrated sustainability, then demonstrate its applicability in large-N geospatial research as well as its practical application in field-based conservation.
About the Speakers
Joshua Fisher, PhD
Joshua Fisher is a Specially Appointed Professor at NERPS, Hiroshima University, and a Research Scientist and Director of AC4 at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Dr. Fisher employs natural and social science methodologies to understand the nexus of environmental sustainability, natural resource governance, and social stability. He routinely works with public, private, and community-based stakeholders to assess and manage environmental and natural resource conflicts. He has worked extensively in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia Pacific, and the western United States. Dr. Fisher completed his postdoctoral work at The Earth Institute where he focused on biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Prior to joining AC4, Dr. Fisher worked in the private sector as a Senior Scientist on US Government contracts. He likewise worked with several conservation organizations in the non-profit sector, and formerly served as a land-use planner for the US Bureau of Land Management. He holds advanced degrees in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University, and Political Science from Utah State University.
Sophia Rhee, MSc
Sophia has been working at AC4 since 2017 in a variety of roles in the EPS program. She graduated in 2019 with an MSc in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford, and holds bachelors degrees from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University in the social sciences and sustainable development. During her studies, she focused on land conflict, rights, and statebuilding in Tanzania, as well as extractive industry governance. Previously, she has written for the Red Cross Climate Centre on climate change and conflict, as well as working with FINCA on climate change and agricultural risk in Haiti. Broadly, she is interested in the intersection between environmental change, conflict, and development.
About the NERPS Webinar Series
The Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS) at Hiroshima University in Japan is hosting a series of webinars on the relationship between peace and sustainability in the context of environmental, socio-political, economic, and technological transformations. This series is situated within the urgent need to deal with the implications of global change, including the COVID-19 pandemic, for peace and sustainability. The webinar sessions serve as a platform for rethinking and updating the current discourse on peace and sustainability amidst these global challenges and transformations. Leading experts will discuss the role of resources, digital technologies, migration, governance, and education in peacebuilding, conflict mitigation, humanitarian aid, and capacity-building, among other components that contribute to the achievement of the Sustainability Development Goals, particularly that of Goal 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.