CIG Seminar: Shannon Hagerman

Start Date/Time: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 1:30 PM
Ending Date/Time: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 3:00 PM
Location: FSH 203 (Fisheries Science Bldg, 1122 Boat St)

The Climate Impacts Group is pleased to have Shannon Hagerman, a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia and doctorial fellow at the Climate Decision Making Centre at Carnegie Mellon University, presenting at this week's seminar. Shannon's seminar presentation title is:

"Expert views on adapting conservation policy to the impacts of climate change"

Location: FSH 203 (Fisheries Science Bldg, 1122 Boat St)
Campus Map

An abstract is included below. More information on this quarter's seminar schedule is available at:
http://www.cses.washington.edu/cig/outreach/seminars.shtml

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Abstract:

The issue of how to adapt conservation policy and practice to the impacts of climate change has emerged as a central and unresolved issue in conservation and resource management. In this presentation we report on the results of a series of in-depth interviews with biodiversity and climate change adaptation experts on the implications of climate change for conservation policy. The interview results reveal a greater diversity of opinion for conservation adaptation alternatives than is apparent from the primary literature, conference panel presentations and consensus statements. We discuss some key areas of agreement and disagreement across respondents on topics relating to 1) conservation policy frameworks (means and objectives), 2) uncertainty and decision-making and 3) institutions and governance. This discussion includes the range of expert views on issues such as changing conservation objectives and measures of conservation success, conservation triage, triage criteria, and increased intervention in conservation areas including managing species transitions through disturbance. We also discuss the tension between an understanding of the dynamic properties of linked human-ecological systems versus expressed value preferences to preserve specific species and spaces. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for understanding the dynamics of policy change and adaptation in the context of conservation and climate change.


Speaker bio:

Shannon Hagerman is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia and doctorial fellow at the Climate Decision Making Centre housed at Carnegie Mellon University. She is an ecologist (MSc) and now nearing the end of her PhD, and interdisciplinary researcher by training. Her research interests include interactions between linked human-ecological systems with a specific focus on how these dimensions and their interactions change over time and underpin past, current and emerging environmental policies. In her dissertation research she examined the social and ecological dimensions of adapting conservation policy to the impacts of climate change - in part by conducting a series of in-depth interviews with biodiversity and climate change impacts experts. As an interdisciplinary researcher she draws from insights across fields including non-equilibrium ecology, science and environmental policy, ecological anthropology, and policy change in complex adapting systems. She looks forward to further work examining the social and biophysical context within which conservation adaptation decisions unfold in response to the impacts of climate change.