To address environmental issues, society needs a deeper understanding of the natural world, and the ways we can regulate our own behavior. Faculty and students at F&ES conduct research in eight broadly conceived areas of environmental concern – biodiversity, forestry, global climate, industry, law and economics, urban systems, water, and social ecology. The scope of these programs reflects not just the complexity of human interaction with the environment, but the fact that the easy answers have been exhausted. As such, it is the mission of the F&ES faculty and students to conduct research that uncovers new knowledge, unique insights, and approaches that tie many fields together. This mission is further carried out by communicating the results of this research to the widest possible audience through publication, lectures, and other educational programs.
Sanjeev Sanyal
Sanjeev Sanyal

The Great Urban Shift: How Urbanization and Our Evolving Cities are Transforming the World We Live In

By Alisa May, Research Office Student Assistant

Are urban slums an urban failure, or a stepping stone to successful urbanization?

Sanjeev Sanyal, the founder and president of India’s Sustainable Planet Institute, explained that slums are an “important part of the urban ecosystem” to students and faculty who filled Burke Auditorium in Kroon Hall on November 14, 2011. In a world that is “already more than 50% urban,” and becoming more urban every day, dense cities hold economic and social advantages for rural migrants. Seeking opportunity, people leave rural areas in great numbers. They form slums on the outskirts before becoming incorporated in cities. But slums are not a permanent condition. “We must look beyond the dirty gutters,” Sanyal says, to realize that “a constant turnover of slum dwellers arrive, find job opportunities, in many cases learn English and literacy skills, and transform into India’s new middle class.” Not only do people move out of slums, but the slums also transform slowly into cities. When policy upholds property rights—a very important caveat that is not always the case—land owners invest in development, turning slums into gentrified cities over the course of 10-15 years.

Is the transition from slums to cities always this successful? The dynamics of urbanization in India are different from that of South America and China, Sanyal admits. However, it’s important for policy everywhere to secure property rights and remove obstacles for incorporating migrants into growing cities. The great urban shift will result in environmental benefits through land use and energy efficiency, as well as jobs, education, social and financial opportunities for human welfare.

Sanyal is an economist, environmentalist and urban theorist named Young Global Leader for 2010 by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Atelopus
Sarah A. Wyatt - ProCAT
Atelopus varius individual from the new population.

Research Spotlight

Sarah Wyatt, MESc ’12 researching Atelopus varius, a critically endangered frog species in Costa Rica


Sarah Wyatt (MESc, 2012) has worked with a local foundation, ProCAT, in conservation in Costa Rica for the past 3 years. “Atelopus varius was once fairly common,” Wyatt says, “but was thought to have gone extinct like so many other amphibians affected by chytrid. While working in a private reserve, we found the second known population near a small indigenous community. This population is particularly interesting because it should not be there.” She explains that this genus has been devastated by chytrid (>85% are Critically Endangered), and species found around that elevation have been the hardest hit. During the initial waves of chytrid, many dead frogs were reported from the rivers in the area. “There are important lessons,” says Sarah, “that can be learned from this population that could benefit many species fighting this disease.”
BananaTree

Recent Book Award

The Banana Tree at the Gate: The History of Marginal Peoples and Global Markets in Borneo
by Dr. Michael Dove


Winner of the 2011 Julian Steward Award as given by the Anthropology and Environment Section of the American Anthropological Association.

The Anthropology and Environment Section awards this prize to the best monograph in environmental anthropology each year. The award will be officially presented to Dr. Dove at the AAA meetings this November at the Anthropology and Environment business meeting.

The “Hikayat Banjar,” a native court chronicle from Borneo, characterizes the irresistibility of natural resource wealth to outsiders as “the banana tree at the gate.” Michael R. Dove employs this phrase as a root metaphor to frame the history of resource relations between the indigenous peoples of Borneo and the world system. In analyzing production and trade in forest products, pepper, and especially natural rubber, Dove shows that the involvement of Borneo’s native peoples in commodity production for global markets is ancient and highly successful and that processes of globalization began millennia ago. Dove’s analysis replaces the image of the isolated tropical forest community that needs to be helped into the global system with the reality of communities that have been so successful and competitive that they have had to fight political elites to keep from being forced out.

Published 2011, Yale University Press.

F&ES Seminar Series

Ken Gillingham: Understanding the rebound effect: How much more do consumers drive when we implement fuel economy standards?
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Char Miller: Why Does Environmental History Matter in a Time of Climate Change?
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Ruth DeFries: Does agricultural intensification protect forests?
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Mushfiq Mobarak: Seasonal Migration and Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Julie Newman: Pathways towards sustainability: What does it take to transform an organization?
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Harry Greene: Pleistocene rewilding: lions in a den of Daniels?
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Amity Doolittle: From Tenement Reform to Swamp Eradication: Managing Environmental Filth in New Haven's Urban Landscape, 1880-1920
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
Mark Bomford: Building sustainable food systems: the role of cities and institutions
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium 195 Prospect Street, 3rd Floor
Contact: Amelia Casey
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(Last modified: December 21, 2011)