1601 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96848 info@pacificrisa.org 808.944.7111

Applied Conservation in the Galapagos

What can the rest of the Pacific learn from participatory approaches to applied conservation research in the Galapagos Islands?

Dr. Laura Brewington, Postdoctoral Researcher with the Center for Galapagos Studies at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, will be visiting the East-West Center next week to present a lecture about integrated human-environment studies and environmental change in the Galapagos Islands.

Besides the obvious island connection, Pacific RISA is interested to learn from Dr. Brewington’s work for several reasons. In particular, she will present approaches to research spanning geographic and temporal scales that could potentially inform Pacific RISA’s methods for research across the Pacific Islands region. We are equally interested to hear about her experience implementing a bottom-up approach to stakeholder engagement and participation used in a study of invasive species management in an agricultural zone and a surrounding protected area in the Galapagos; and, how her team has raised community awareness about the invasive species risks associated with goods imported to the islands, an issue Hawai‘i and other Pacific Islands have struggled with for centuries.

Also potentially instructive is Dr. Brewington’s most recent work, which takes a local-to-global perspective on shoreline vulnerability to climate change and other human disturbances throughout the Galapagos archipelago. She asserts that in the Galapagos Islands, as well as other similar settings worldwide, data gathering and monitoring are needed at multiple scales to understand the processes that cross disciplinary boundaries, especially between nature and society.

Join us for this informative lecture!

Where:  John A. Burns Hall, Room 3012, East-West Center, 1601 East-West Road, Honolulu, Hawai‘i

When:  Monday, April  8, 2013 – 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

For more details, see the event description on the East-West Center’s website: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/events/seminar-geographies-conservation-in-the-galapagos-islands-ecuador

 

Blue-Footed Boobies on a cliff in the Galapagos Islands, 2013 by neydoll, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs license.
Blue-footed boobies on a cliff in the Galapagos Islands, © 2013 neydoll, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs license.