Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus: A Panel Discussion

Tuesday, February 27, 2023
5:00-6:00 PM, Reception with lights refreshments to follow
Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory (AERL) Theatre, 2202 Main Mall

RSVP: https://forms.gle/WoR2o1X6wTsXWRap9

The ocean’s capacity to sustain life and support human wellbeing is increasingly threatened by intensifying climate change that exacerbates other non-climatic human stressors such as overfishing, pollution, and invasive species. The world is facing the major challenge of finding just, equitable and culturally-sensitive ways to feed and nourish the future human population while achieving biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation goals. This is the focus of the Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus Partnership (Solving-FCB).

Join us to hear from an international interdisciplinary panel that will discuss the development of marine and aquatic food-climate-biodiversity solutions that explicitly consider their complex social and ecological contexts. The panel will highlight case studies in Canada, China, Costa Rica, Nigeria/Ghana and the Netherlands to elucidate different potential pathways towards achieving food security, climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation goals.

Panelists

• Dr. Denis W. Aheto is a Professor of Coastal ecology and Director of the Centre for Coastal Management – The Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience (ACECoR) at the University of Cape Coast. He has been working in the field of coastal zone management in Ghana for over a decade.
• Dr. Ling Cao is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Oceanography at Shanghai Jiao Tung University. Trained as an agronomist and environmental scientist, she has focused on interdisciplinary research at the interface between the sustainability of food and natural systems.
• Dr. Laurie Chan holds the Canada Research Chair in Toxicology and Environmental Health. He studies the exposure of chemical contaminants found in the diet and the environment, particularly among Indigenous Peoples. Dr. Chan assesses the effects of these contaminants on ecosystem health and human health and develops new tools for risk assessment.
• Dr. Solen Le Clec’h is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Systems Analysis Group at Wageningen University. Her research is highly interdisciplinary and mainly focuses on the spatial and temporal dynamics of the socioecological systems.
  Dr. Ingo Wehrtmann is the founder and director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Unit at University of Costa Rica and is a leading researcher in Latin American aquatic and fisheries ecology and coastal management.
  Dr. Laura Pereira is an Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a leader in developing new approaches to sustainability-focused scenario building and analysis.
• Dr. Temitope Sogbanmu is a Professor at the University of Lagos and is an Environmental Toxicologist with several years of experience in environmental risk assessment and pollution management.
• Dr. Garry Peterson is a Professor Stockholm University and a pioneer and world-leading expert in social-ecological modelling and scenario analysis of environmental issues.

Moderators

• Dr. William Cheung is a Professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, the University of British Columbia. He is also a Canada Research Chair in Ocean Sustainability and Global Change. He is an international leader in developing and using scenarios and models of biodiversity and ecosystem services to understand the responses and vulnerabilities of marine human-natural systems to global change.
• Dr. Rashid Sumaila is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, marine protected areas, illegal fishing, climate change, marine plastic pollution, and oil spills.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/WoR2o1X6wTsXWRap9