The number of undernourished people in the world is on the rise despite the fact that we currently produce enough food to feed our global population. In this course we examine how this paradox relates to inequality, conflict, and climate change. We analyze historical events that have shaped our current food security at different scales as well as frameworks and indicators to understand food security. We evaluate food crises, food riots, and how these crises link to the financialization of our food system. We also examine how different countries and actors have adopted food sovereignty to address economic and social inequalities in our food system. Other key themes in this course include: sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, food waste, nutritional transitions, urban food security, and sustainable diets, Students have the unique opportunity to learn course themes in practice during local field visits, invited lectures, and through gardening on the UPEACE organic farm.
The number of undernourished people in the world is on the rise despite the fact that we currently produce enough food to feed our global population. In this course we examine how this paradox relates to inequality, conflict, and climate change. We analyze historical events that have shaped our current food security at different scales as well as frameworks and indicators to understand food security. We evaluate food crises, food riots, and how these crises link to the financialization of our food system. We also examine how different countries and actors have adopted food sovereignty to address economic and social inequalities in our food system. Other key themes in this course include: sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, food waste, nutritional transitions, urban food security, and sustainable diets, Students have the unique opportunity to learn course themes in practice during local field visits, invited lectures, and through gardening on the UPEACE organic farm.
One of the challenges for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals relates to strengthening public institutions, non-government organizations, development agencies, and other actors to transform solution ideas and proposals into concrete realities that improve the well-being of our society.
This course aims at reinforcing the knowledge, skills and attitudes of professionals involved in sustainable development initiatives for delivering efficient and effective solutions with the available resources. In this course, we will introduce concepts and tools on better designing and planning practices that lead to the successful funding of projects at the local or national level.
Scientists worldwide agree that human-induced climate change is occurring and have documented the environmental scenarios that humanity is moving towards. Widespread awareness about such impacts and ensuing policy actions to address it, are a relatively recent phenomenon. The creation of climate policy mechanisms and international legal instruments has been the result of a series of complex, long-lasting negotiation processes that include multiple stakeholders acting across multiple scales and potentially influence global socio-economic, cultural and ethical conducts. Thus, climate governance must be analyzed over various spatial, temporal and system scales.
This course examines climate change governance by looking at the interaction between these multiple elements, beginning with a historical overview of the scientific evidence, the mechanisms for that knowledge to permeate into decision making, the multilateral, regional, national and sub-national governance spheres and the most current state of affairs.
Special attention will be drawn to:
- effective science-policy interfacing mechanisms,
- the structure of multi-level organizations to enable cooperation and dialogue,
- the existence of appropriate legal instruments,
- special governance considerations in especially vulnerable ecosystems (like poles and the ocean).
This course focuses on the interconnectedness of the work of human security and development with its gendered dimensions. It aims to engage with the notion of human security to elaborate on how people’s livelihoods, their well-being, and concerns such as those related to the environment, food, and health, among others, are directly related to the gendered ways in which they have been approached. It also delves into feminist analyses of development issues and explores gender inequalities in the areas of education, labor force, mortality, and more.
Climate change adaptation without mainstreaming equity and justice, will only serve to perpetuate existing inequity. In this class, we will take a justice lens to analyze climate change impacts and adaptation efforts. Specifically, we will examine the following themes: 1) adaptation, resilience & climate action, 2) energy transitions, 3) human rights, 4) rights of nature, 5) gender and intersectional justice, 6) climate change and displacement as well as 7) Indigenous peoples and climate change. Students will examine this suite of themes via multiple contemporary case studies.
In this course we will critically examine research methodology. Our course is designed to take student sequentially through the process of thinking about and designing research. Together, we will explore the basic structure of research and examine the philosophical origins of different research approaches. I will guide students as they learn to link different information-gathering methods to different research approaches. My emphasis will be on qualitative research methodology but we will introduce quantitative data gathering and sampling. To ensure that students gain hands on experience with the process of developing methodologies and implementing different information gathering procedures, I will complement lectures with workshops where students will learn by doing. Furthermore, I believe that learning about methods requires analyzing how these methods have worked (or not) in real-world case studies; thus, in class discussions of current case studies will complement workshops and lectures.
In this course, Eli Enns will take students through an exploration in geopolitics, international dispute resolution and nature conservation from the vantage point of an Indigenous Nation Builder in Canada - The world's only multi-national Indigenous-European state. What does the word "Canada" mean? Embracing the Nuu'chah'nulth worldview of Hishuk'ish Tsawaak, students will experience an intimate view into an advanced Indigenous societies perspective. We will also explore some of the successful examples arising in Canada over the past several decades of Indigenous-led conservation of nature through reconciliation, including Tribal Parks and The Pathway to Canada Target 1.
In this course we will critically examine research methodology. Our course is designed to take student sequentially through the process of thinking about and designing research. Together, we will explore the basic structure of research and examine the philosophical origins of different research approaches. I will guide students as they learn to link different information-gathering methods to different research approaches. My emphasis will be on qualitative research methodology but we will introduce quantitative data gathering and sampling. To ensure that students gain hands on experience with the process of developing methodologies and implementing different information gathering procedures, I will complement lectures with workshops where students will learn by doing. Furthermore, I believe that learning about methods requires analyzing how these methods have worked (or not) in real-world case studies; thus, in class discussions of current case studies will complement workshops and lectures.
This class is an opportunity to explore in-depth how different land-uses and conservation approaches intermingle in one particular region: the Southwest of Costa Rica. The purpose of the field trip is to obtain critical direct experience and knowledge of important natural resources management issues in a developing country, given the real political, economic and natural resources context of the same. This course enables students to assess the contextual factors that affect natural resource management. Over the course of the trip, we will visit and be exposed to projects and issues with various resources, different actors involved in the management and different institutional settings. As such it will be a chance for you to integrate ideas from many of the classes 2 you have taken over the course of your program, as well as a chance to learn from some of your peers about the topics to which you were not exposed during your program.
This class is an opportunity to explore in-depth how different land-uses and conservation approaches intermingle in one particular region: the Southwest of Costa Rica. The purpose of the field trip is to obtain critical direct experience and knowledge of important natural resources management issues in a developing country, given the real political, economic and natural resources context of the same. This course enables students to assess the contextual factors that affect natural resource management. Over the course of the trip, we will visit and be exposed to projects and issues with various resources, different actors involved in the management and different institutional settings. As such it will be a chance for you to integrate ideas from many of the classes 2 you have taken over the course of your program, as well as a chance to learn from some of your peers about the topics to which you were not exposed during your program.
By 2050, it is estimated that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in an urban environment. In many countries in the developing world, this is already a reality, with 80-90% of their populations living in cities, with increasing and rapid rates of urbanization. Increased urban population growth, paired with other socio-economic realities that are characteristic to cities, poses enormous challenges to ensure quality of life and wellbeing for everyone, leaving no one behind.
Urban sustainability goes beyond how "green" a city is. This course will be based on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and the New Urban Agenda, and will provide an understanding on how sustainability in cities is a multi-variable concept, interconnected with other SDGs and issues such as urban planning, transport planning and design, inequality, climate action, health, gender, economic development, among others. You will learn from case studies, articles, reports and the experience of experts in the field, in addition to gaining tools and developing skills that will help you propose strategies, projects and policies to improve your community, town or city in order to make it more sustainable.
By 2050, it is estimated that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in an urban environment. In many countries in the developing world, this is already a reality, with 80-90% of their populations living in cities, with increasing and rapid rates of urbanization. Increased urban population growth, paired with other socio-economic realities that are characteristic to cities, poses enormous challenges to ensure quality of life and wellbeing for everyone, leaving no one behind.
Urban sustainability goes beyond how "green" a city is. This course will be based on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and the New Urban Agenda, and will provide an understanding on how sustainability in cities is a multi-variable concept, interconnected with other SDGs and issues such as urban planning, transport planning and design, inequality, climate action, health, gender, economic development, among others. You will learn from case studies, articles, reports and the experience of experts in the field, in addition to gaining tools and developing skills that will help you propose strategies, projects and policies to improve your community, town or city in order to make it more sustainable.
This course will take a close look at the linkages between environment, conflict and development. We will discuss the different root causes of environmental and social or development crises as they come forward in the literature, focusing on a series of highly contested concepts and narratives around overpopulation, economic growth, and free market capitalism and globalization. Part of this discussion will be an analysis of the responses to these crises and what can, should and is being done to stop them.
We will take a closer look at the different linkages between environment and armed conflicts. We will discuss the literature on environmental security, going from older frameworks of scarcity induced conflicts to natural resource abundance, move the discussion to more complex issues of ecological limits, limits to growth, and ecological security, integrating globalization, and historical, political, ecological and economic issues that influence development, environment, and peace and conflicts. We will end with
In this course we will become familiar with contemporary issues in sustainable agriculture and critically analyze key debates in the field. To provide context to our discussions, we situate the emergence of sustainable agricultural practices within their historic contexts (e.g., green revolution) and we will examine key economic agreements that shape current agricultural markets and trade. We critically examine our global modes of production, industrial, agroecological, and sustainable intensification and we link our analysis to the most recent programs and policies regarding agriculture promoted by the FAO of the United Nations (e.g., scaling-up of agroecology). In addition, we take on some of the most pressing agriculture issues including: climate change, livestock, water security, agricultural certifications, biotechnology (including GMOs), markets, local food, and gender. We mainstream a social justice angle in our class to ensure that we understand how programs and policies affect countries and people differently, by gender, age, and ethnicity.
Deforestation is considered one of the main global environmental challenges of our times, because of its significant impact on biodiversity and its important contribution to Climate Change and Global Warming, as well as on the livelihoods of millions of people. This course analyzes the way deforestation and forest degradation have been and are being explained by both mainstream and alternative narratives. It critically engages with the way deforestation is defined and measured and discusses the various attempts in stopping or reducing it. We will look at a range of conservation approaches that go from traditional protected areas over community-based strategies, and the increasingly common market-based approaches and finally forest restoration. Illegal logging and timber trade will be looked at as a specific topic of particular importance since it is linked to development, poverty, and violent conflict. Additionally, this course looks at the links between poverty and deforestation, some of the possible strategies to reduce poverty through forest-based activities, and analyzes and discusses the importance of forests for humans and the challenges faced by those who try to manage them sustainably.
Deforestation is considered one of the main global environmental challenges of our times, because of its significant impact on biodiversity and its important contribution to Climate Change and Global Warming, as well as on the livelihoods of millions of people. This course analyzes the way deforestation and forest degradation have been and are being explained by both mainstream and alternative narratives. It critically engages with the way deforestation is defined and measured and discusses the various attempts in stopping or reducing it. We will look at a range of conservation approaches that go from traditional protected areas over community-based strategies, and the increasingly common market-based approaches and finally forest restoration. Illegal logging and timber trade will be looked at as a specific topic of particular importance since it is linked to development, poverty, and violent conflict. Additionally, this course looks at the links between poverty and deforestation, some of the possible strategies to reduce poverty through forest-based activities, and analyzes and discusses the importance of forests for humans and the challenges faced by those who try to manage them sustainably.