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Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of our latest webinar with Rebecca Gruby available at the following link.

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Title: Philanthropic foundations as agents of environmental governance: Insights from ocean philanthropy

Abstract:

Ocean philanthropy has more than doubled in recent years, now reaching virtually every salient marine conservation issue in all corners of the planet. This private funding is impacting ocean governance systems in profound ways, including by shaping agendas, discourse, research, networks, and policy. Despite its significant growth and influence, ocean philanthropy (and environmental philanthropy more broadly) has received little scholarly attention. This presentation will introduce the Ocean Philanthropy Research Initiative, a five-year knowledge co-production project focused on the roles, impacts, and legitimacy of private foundations in marine conservation. I will first explain how and why we are conceptualizing private foundations as agents of environmental governance, and then I will share preliminary empirical results on how foundations and practitioners conceptualize donor legitimacy in the marine conservation field. I will discuss how our work – and additional research from the broader enviornmental governance community – can inform the practice of conservation philanthropy at a time when foundations are increasingly reckoning with their role as institutions of power in society. 

Biography:

Rebecca is an Associate Professor of human dimensions of natural resources at Colorado State University. She is an environmental governance scholar whose research focuses on contemporary transformations in ocean conservation. Over the last 15 years, she has worked on issues spanning marine protected areas, small-scale fisheries, marine ecosystem-based management, the blue economy, ocean philanthropy, and justice and equity in the marine conservation field. As lead PI for the Ocean Philanthropy Research Initiative and the Human Dimensions of Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas project, Rebecca has led international research teams in the first social science studies of ocean conservation philanthropy and the world’s largest marine parks. Geographically, most of her work is situated in the Pacific Islands region and at the global level. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science in natural resource conservation from the University of Florida (2006), and a Ph.D from Duke University (2013). She worked as a research associate at the Environmental Law Institute between 2006-2008.

Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of our latest webinar with Jule Huber and Jacqueline Loos available at the following link.

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Title: Social and ecological success of participation in protected areas

Abstract:

Protected areas are key to conserving ecosystems and safeguarding biodiversity worldwide. Involving local stakeholders in decision-making in protected areas has the potential to contribute not only to the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, but also to human well-being and environmental equity. However, sound and in-depth evidence on the relationship between participatory approaches and protected area effectiveness is piecemeal. Moreover, the specific features of participation linked to social and ecological protected area success are still poorly understood. This study aims at investigating how participation in protected area decision-making is related to desired social and ecological outcomes. To this end, this work applied a systematic literature review approach to synthesize existing scientific knowledge on this topic. The review comprised 52 empirical case studies examining social and ecological outcomes of protected areas in which local stakeholders were involved in the decision-making process. The study found that participation is related to success in many ways, and determined pathways through which participation contributes to desired social and ecological outcomes. Based on these findings and prevailing literature, eleven features of participation related to positive social and ecological protected area outcomes emerged: 1. Genuine devolution of power to the local level; 2. Involvement of diverse actors and multiple perspectives through fair and inclusive processes; 3. Strong networks and high levels of cooperation; 4. Knowledge integration and co-production; 5. Recognition and integration of local institutions, management systems, rules, values, and customs; 6. Strong and robust local institutions and effective management systems; 7. Alternative income opportunities; 8. Provision and fair distribution of local benefits; 9. Local initiative and support; 10. Rights-based approach to conservation; 11. Long-term external support. Even though the degree and form of participation requires adjustment to specific local contexts, this overview of features provides a sound evidence base on the relation between participatory decision-making and social and ecological effectiveness in protected areas. This information can be used to design more effective participatory conservation interventions in protected areas that meet both biodiversity conservation and human well-being. 

Bio:
Jule Huber completed her Master in Sustainability Science (M.Sc.) at Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany. Her research focuses on conservation, environmental justice, social-ecological systems, and participatory governance. In her Master thesis, she examined the link between local participation in protected area decision-making and social and ecological protected area outcomes. She determined pathways through which participatory decision-making is associated with beneficial outcomes. During her Master she has worked as a student assistant in several research projects in the fields of conservation, environmental justice, and governance. In 2022, she will start her PhD on biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes at Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany.

Jens Newig is full professor and head of the Institute of Sustainability Governance at Leuphana University, Lüneburg. With a broad research interest in governance processes from local decision-making to global telecoupling, much of his research focused on the link between participatory or collaborative governance, and environmental outcomes. He has led several research projects on this theme, and was awarded a grant by the European Research Council (ERC) that produced a meta-analysis of case studies on the outcomes of participatory environmental decision-making processes.
Jacqueline Loos is an assistant professor for the sustainable use of natural resources at the Faculty of Sustainability at Leuphana University and currently leads the interdisciplinary research project “Wildlife, Values, Justice: reconciling sustainability in African protected areas” (funded by the Robert-Bosch Foundation). As a landscape sustainability researcher, she is interested in the social and ecological effectiveness of conservation arrangements, with a particular focus on participatory and collaborative governance. 

Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of our latest webinar with Georgina Gurney available at the following link.

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Title: Other Effective Conservation Measure: A New Global Policy Tool to Advance Effective and Equitable Conservation?

Abstract:

With the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) being the world’s foremost international conservation agreement, the CBD Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework offers a crucial policy window to chart a course towards a more sustainable future. This new framework will significantly influence the use and governance of forests, fishing grounds and other commons, particularly through its area-based conservation target, which calls for 30% of the planet to be conserved by 2030. In this presentation, I argue that achieving effective and equitable conservation through this target will require the conservation community to go beyond protected areas, the typical approach used to date. Other Effective Conservation Measures (OECMs) – managed areas that achieve biodiversity outcomes irrespective of their objectives – are poised to meet this need. Given OECMs need not have biodiversity conservation as a primary objective (unlike protected areas), this new policy tool provides an unprecedented opportunity to recognise and support diverse forms of stewardship associated with a range of managed areas (e.g. Indigenous territories, community-managed fisheries areas, sacred areas). However, realising the opportunity that OECMs present to advance equitable and effective conservation requires addressing important concerns about their implementation, especially those related to demonstrating conservation effectiveness and ensuring OECM recognition strengthens rather than displaces local governance. Based on recent transdisciplinary research involving environmental practitioners and policymakers, I outline a research and policy agenda that tackles five key challenges to implementing OECMs. This presentation aims to generate discussion around this new global policy tool, including with regards to the role of scholarship on environmental governance, justice and social-ecological systems in helping ensure OECMs contribute to a just and sustainable future.

Bio:

Georgina Gurney is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University. She is an environmental social scientist, and her research focuses broadly on the governance of conservation and natural resource management initiatives. Her current research program aims to identify the sociocultural and institutional drivers of these initiatives, and understand their outcomes, especially with respect to human wellbeing. Georgina takes an interdisciplinary approach to her research, drawing from a range of disciplines including social psychology, human geography and political science, and often collaborating with natural scientists. Much of her research is transdisciplinary, involving knowledge co-production with conservation and resource management practitioners and policymakers. She has tended to undertake her research in the context of coral reef social-ecological systems in the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesia, Australia and Fiji. Georgina held a five-year Social Science Fellowship (2016-2020) at the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and in 2021, was awarded an Early Career Fellowship by the Australian Research Council.

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This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of our latest webinar with Saba Siddiki available at the following link.

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Title: Evolving Institutional Analysis Methods for Studying Environmental Governance

Abstract:

Central to understanding environmental governance is the ability to rigorously and reliably study the design of institutions used by communities to address environmental dilemmas. Scholars have engaged a variety of methods toward deciphering the designs and performance of environmental institutions. Advancements in institutional analysis methods are opening the door to new possibilities for investigating the design of institutions engaged in environmental governance. In this presentation, I will discuss how one particular institutional analysis method of growing prominence called the Institutional Grammar, and recent developments relating thereto, can advance understanding of environmental institutions.

Bio:
Saba Siddiki is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on policy design, collaborative policymaking, and policy drivers of technology adoption. She is also engaged in the development of institutional analysis theory and methods, and currently directs an international, interdisciplinary research organization called the Institutional Grammar Research Initiative that is specifically focused on these aims. Most of Saba’s research is conducted  in the domains of environmental and food system governance.

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This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of our latest webinar with Praneeta Mudaliar available at the following link.

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Title: Power dynamics in Lake Victoria’s Polycentric fisheries

Abstract:

Polycentric governance involves many overlapping, semi-autonomous centers of authority that are engaged in self-organization, coordination, and mutual adjustment. The many benefits of polycentric governance—flexibility, responsiveness, inclusivity, institutional fit, opportunities for experimentation and innovation, and robustness—make it attractive compared to monocentric governance. While polycentricity is certainly not a panacea, research on polycentric governance, specifically power dynamics among centers of authority, challenges these normative prescriptions. Studies find that different kinds of power influence the emergence as well as the design of polycentric systems to result in maladaptive outcomes. In this presentation, by drawing upon the polycentric power typology, I will provide insights into the power dynamics underpinning Lake Victoria’s polycentric fisheries system in east Africa.  

Bio:
Praneeta Mudaliar is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Ithaca College in New York, USA. Praneeta’s interdisciplinary social scientific research and teaching spans across the themes of commons and collective action, climate justice and climate policy, and decolonizing conservation for advancing social justice and environmental sustainability. She has conducted cross-national empirical research in the United States, India, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Pia Harkness.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: The Our Knowledge Our Way in Caring for Country Guidelines: distilling guiding principles for best practice, Indigenous-led knowledge, sharing from case study examples

Abstract:

As significant landowners, managers and custodians, Indigenous Australians are applying their knowledges in land and sea management, generating many social, economic and environmental benefits. In contemporary land and sea management contexts, there are many challenges for both Indigenous peoples and their partners when sharing and working with Indigenous knowledge. Knowledge has previously been misappropriated and misused; commercially exploited without benefits flowing to communities, used without consent and in ways that are considered harmful by Traditional Custodians. Therefore, there is an urgent need for examples of good, Indigenous-led practices for strengthening and sharing knowledge. The Indigenous-led Our Knowledge Our Way in caring for Country guidelines aims to help address this need, by showcasing case studies of best practices in knowledge sharing from across Australia. The guidelines are based on the guiding principle that Indigenous people must decide what is best practice when working with their knowledge. This presentation will focus on the Indigenous-led approach to development of these guidelines, including the role of non-Indigenous scientists. It will also discuss how guiding principles were distilled from the case studies, to support improved knowledge sharing practices across a wide range of contexts.

Bio:
Dr Pia Harkness is a social scientist with a focus on collaborative natural resource management and sustainable livelihoods. Her PhD research investigated the livelihood implications of conservation and development interventions, and prospects for small-scale fisheries co-management in a remote Indonesian setting. In her current role as Research Projects Officer at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, her work focusses on bringing together multiple knowledge and value systems to support Indigenous-led land and sea management and climate change adaptations.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Örjan Bodin.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Environmental governance and human-nature interactions: A network perspective

Abstract:

Achieving effective, sustainable environmental governance requires a better understanding of the causes and consequences of the complex patterns of interdependencies connecting people and ecosystems. Network thinking provides a way to make these patterns of interdependencies the subject of empirical enquiry. In this talk I will demonstrate how multilevel social-ecological network modeling has been used to study environmental outcomes in small-scale fisheries and agriculture. I will also show how this multilevel network approach can be applied studying how actors working with different tasks, or policy issues, choose to engage in collaboration (or not), and what the consequences of these choices can be.

Bio:
Assoc. Prof. Örjan Bodin is a principal researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. He received his PhD from the Dept of Systems Ecology at Stockholm University 15 years ago, and has since been studying environmental governance in different contexts around the world. Most of his work is inherently interdisciplinary and he combines and integrates methods and theories (where applicable) from ecology, political science, sociology, behavioral economics, and network science.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Josie Chambers.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Opening up the co-production black box for ecosystem sustainability

Abstract:

Researchers and diverse societal actors increasingly co-produce knowledge and action to address complex sustainability challenges. These efforts span an increasingly rich and diverse body of terminologies and practices. However, there is poor clarity over the specific ways these approaches vary, and their practical implications. To explore this diversity, we analyzed 32 initiatives from six continents that co-produce diverse outcomes for ecosystem sustainability at local to global scales. The analysis revealed important ways that co-production initiatives vary in their purpose for utilizing co-production, understanding of power, approach to politics, and pathways to impact. This webinar will explore the implications of these differences and present a heuristic tool that helps navigate the potential benefits and risks of different approaches to co-producing knowledge and action for ecosystem sustainability.

Bio:
Josie Chambers is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer in the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her research broadly examines the politics and implications of multi-scalar approaches to co-producing knowledge and transformative governance. In her current role, she organizes a university-wide dialogue process that connects diverse researchers to develop more transformative research pathways and foster institutional change. Josie was previously based at the University of Cambridge, completing an MPhil in Conservation Leadership, PhD in Geography, and two post-doctoral fellowships.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Ramiro Berardo on online education.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Tips for Increasing Student Engagement and Improving your Effectiveness as an Online Teacher

Abstract:

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition to online education has accelerated and educators all over the world have had to quickly adapt to the need to offering online courses. This has posed major disruptions in teaching practices but also created new, exciting opportunities to embrace new instructional approaches and update the ever changing “teaching toolkit.” In this presentation, I offer a number of simple tips that I have found to increase student engagement and improve my performance as an instructor in synchronous and asynchronous online courses. These lessons are drawn from individual experience, but they can at the very least enrich a conversation on ways in which instructional effectiveness can be improved in a context of rapidly evolving teaching (and learning!) styles. 

Bio:

Ramiro Berardo is Associate Professor of Environmental and Natural Resources Policy in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Florida State University.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/