Current and Future Research Interests
At the core of my research is how to advance pathways for sustainable communities and environments through collaboration with academic and community partners. I bring a strong quantitative and qualitative methodological toolbox to addressing four key themes: (1) private-social partnerships for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management; (2) transformative local ‘solution spaces’ for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management; (3) social diversity and inclusion in seeking nature-based solutions to biodiversity challenges; and (4) social dimensions of cumulative effect assessment of disturbance in socioecological systems.
Private-social partnerships for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management
The place and role of private corporations or market arrangements in the conservation literature is still highly debated. Beyond the academic debates, emerging practices on the ground suggests that carefully designed arrangements for private participation in ecosystem management can yield significant conservation and human wellbeing benefits. My research focuses on the evolution and effectiveness of partnership arrangements between small-scale forest communities and private corporations or markets to improve forest sustainability. My research addresses four main questions: (1) under what conditions or contexts are private arrangements effective for ecosystem management?, (2) what institutional arrangements enhance the design and sustenance of social-private partnerships? (3) how can researchers support businesses to respond better to the ongoing biodiversity crisis?, and (4) what are the opportunities and challenges to co-create new business models for managing ecosystem services?
Past & Future Partners/Collaborators
Transformative local ‘solution spaces’ for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management
Efforts to protect and conserve biodiversity has been less successful in both the global north and south, prompting calls for significant transformation in human-nature relations. Scholars from both conservation and sustainability sciences as well as major global governance policy actors (e.g., United Nations) now agree that a lack of information or knowledge is not the primary barrier to addressing the ongoing biodiversity crisis; instead, mechanisms to transform knowledge into action are urgently needed. This suggests that conservation sciences must move beyond the 'problem space' into the ‘solution space’ in which solutions are deliberated, designed, and implemented.
This research explores opportunities for the design, deployment, and evaluation of novel institutions, platforms, and concepts that enable stakeholders within specific socioecological contexts to articulate and pursue community goals and visions of socioecological transformation. It aims to create a network of science-policy actors, communities and businesses to deliberate, design and advance transformation solutions for human-ecosystem relationships. Pilot sites for this research will be located in Canada, Japan and Ghana.
Source: cfc-swc.gc.ca
Social diversity and inclusion in seeking nature-based solutions to biodiversity challenges
Canada has established domestic and international biodiversity goals, which include increasing the number of protected areas, protecting species at risk, and improving Canada’s natural environment including restoring modified ecosystems. Effective implementation of these Nature Based Solutions (NBS) can benefit both humans and biodiversity. However, without adequate safeguards, NBS can exclude historically underrepresented groups such as Indigenous People, women, visible minorities, and youth.
To ensure that current and future NBS programs promote inclusion and diversity, key actors such as resource managers, policy makers, private sector and conservation groups are being engaged to co-design tools and approaches to promote equitable opportunities for participation.
Lead collaborators
Professor Stephen Wyatt, Université de Moncton
Professor Maureen G Reed, University of Saskatchewan
Cumulative Effects Assessment of disturbance on forest ecosystem services and values
Forest ecosystems, particularly in the global south, are threatened by multiple disturbance from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Sustainable management of forests ecosystems depends upon systematic, routine, and defensible cumulative effects assessment (CEA) of disturbance from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Building on existing collaborations and knowledge on CEA research in Canada, this research focuses on:
Improving our understanding of the risks and impacts of cumulative effects of multiple disturbance on forest ecosystems services and values
Integrating socioeconomic indicators in cumulative effects research and management
Developing, testing and improving science-based decision-making tools to measure, reclaim, restore forest ecosystems services affected by multiple disturbances
Collaborators:
Dr. Effah Kwabena Antwi, Canadian Forest Service- Natural Resources Canada
Sheila O. Ashong, Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana
Dr. Emmanuel Morgan Attua, Department of Geography, University of Ghana.