No images? Click here CAWR Newsletter December 2019 Our monthly newsletters are an easy way to keep up-to-date with new developments at our research centre. From successful project bids to upcoming events, our newsletter informs you on how we are 'driving innovative transdisciplinary research on resilient food and water systems.' NewsNourishing Life. Territories of Life and Food Sovereignty - a new policy briefDrawing on practical examples from eight countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, the Policy Brief Nourishing Life. Territories of Life and Food Sovereignty is the outcome of a long term collaboration between the ICCA Consortium, an international association of indigenous peoples and local communities that govern, manage and conserve their territories of life (ICCAs), and the Centre for Agroecology Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University. This Policy Brief focuses on the contributions that the territories and areas governed, managed and conserved by custodian indigenous peoples and local communities — ‘ICCAs – territories of life’ — make to food sovereignty and how, in turn, food sovereignty contributes to the conservation of biodiversity and socio-ecological resilience in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and coastal zones. Food sovereignty and the conservation of nature’s diversity are enhanced when self-determining communities affirm the human rights of peasants, fisherfolks, nomads, and indigenous peoples to govern and manage their food systems and the territories they are embedded in. Territories of life and food sovereignty can thus be mutually supportive in virtuous cycles. The release of this Policy Brief coincides with the first year anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). Significantly, this UN instrument recognizes peoples’ right to land, seeds, natural resources, and food sovereignty via agroecology, local markets, local seeds, participatory decision-making, gender justice, and the transition to resilient and sustainable food systems. On 17 December, UN Human Right experts also released a very strong Statement on the occasion of the 1st Anniversary of the adoption of the UNDROP. Click here to view the policy brief. SuDs goes to BrazilSue and Cris at UFRGS Professor Sue Charlesworth was invited by Prof. Dr. Cristiano Poleto (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) – Brazil) to present 2 keynotes at conferences in Brazil, 23 November – 3 December 2019. She was also able to visit PhD and Masters students, have a tour of the laboratories and also discuss their interesting projects, the majority of which focused on New and Emerging Pollutants, an important and very topical area of research worldwide. On November 27 her keynote was at the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Water Resources, held November 24 - 28, 2019, Foz do Iguaçu, PR, Brazil. Entitled Challenging sustainable drainage: design and implementation, it covered the kinds of information required to design, construct and maintain Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) in refugee camps, favelas and informal settlements, concentrating on how vital it is to engage with the community to enable the longevity of the systems and their continued performance. In full flow at the Water Resources Symposium Her second invited keynote opened the 5th Symposium on Sustainable Systems, Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil, December 2, 2019. Entitled Sustainable Drainage Systems in Challenging Environments, this covered the ability of SuDS to address the challenges in the lack of stormwater and greywater management in slums. Sue and Cris at the Sustainable Systems conference after her keynote talk Sue’s visit was possible at the kind invitation of Adilson Pinheiro and Jeverson Marcos Pereira Da Silva and these organisations. RISINGProfessor Michel Pimbert participated at the RISING Global Peace Forum in November. He was part of the seminar on the environment with Roger Harrabin and Harriet Lamb. Find out more about the event here. Do Scholar-Activists Need to Organise?The Food Sovereignty movement makes use of constituencies, regions and quotas to manage representation. Researchers were a visible presence at the 2016 Nyéléni Europe Forum, but they are absent in the new governance model of Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia. Do European scholar-activists need to organize? Seven feminist scholar-activists working on food sovereignty reflect on this in a new article that is summarised in this short video.Scale, Agroecology and the Politics of Agricultural Sustainability Transitions in Sikkim, IndiaBarbara Smith has recently co-authored a book for the series The Biology of Habitats for Oxford University Press. The Biology of Agroecosystems provides a novel perspective on agroecosystems, summarising our current understanding of the basic and applied aspects of these important and complex habitats, whilst focusing on environmental concerns in the context of global change. Building Resilience to Natural Disasters in populated African Mountain EcosystemsGeorge McAllister recently visited Chimanimani in Zimbabwe to initiate comparative research on how agroecologically managed landscapes coped with the impacts of Cyclone Idai in March. Given that exposure to disasters and risk is interconnected but experienced in different ways by various groups, this multi-sectoral research will consider integrated pathways towards building resilience and reducing underlying vulnerabilities to risk. To manage this complexity, the impacts will be analysed using to different lenses under six themes: (1) Humanitarian Impact, (2) Climate Change and Environment, (3) Agroecology and Land Use, (4) Livelihoods, political economy and governance, (5) Topography, infrastructure and settlement and, (6) Disaster risk reduction, relief and recovery. The research has been commissioned by local NGO, TSURO Trust, and is sanctioned by the local district authority in order that lessons can be learned. Importantly, as a collaborative project, it brings together academics from across Zimbabwe for the first time. The recent scoping visit was an opportunity to meet with affected people and see the scale of the devastation to landscapes, homes and cropping areas. It was also great for detailed planning and team building between the agroecology team, consisting of six specialists from the local Department of Agriculture extension services, Bindura, University of Cape Town, Midland State University and Practical Action. The initial research phase will run to April 2020, using participatory action research to explore issues of biophysical stabilisation, as well as socio-cultural and livelihoods responsiveness, and is anticipated to run into a further action planning and implementation phase alongside participating farmers. Landslides released ‘rivers of boulders’ through the centre of villages, destroying homes, roads and bridges, and washing away vital cropland across the district. The Empire at HomeIn November The Empire at Home blog, which is run by a member of the Centre for History at UHI, published a two-part blog by Iain MacKinnon titled ‘Education and the colonisation of the Gaidhlig mind’. The blogs were republished by Bella Caledonia (here and here), provoking lively, illuminating and 'polite’ debate… International MineXchange ConferenceDr Anna Bogush was invited to give a presentation “Residues from Biomass Thermal Treatment in Energy-from-Waste Facilities for Mine Drainage Remediation as Sustainable Industrial Symbiosis Solution” at the International MineXchange Conference organised by Natural Resources Wales with support from The Coal Authority, Aberystwyth University and the International Mine Water Association (28th-29th November 2019, Aberystwyth University, Wales). The main goal of this conference was “to continue facilitating development of project relationships between academia & industry, sharing knowledge & experience to innovate & commercialise opportunities recovering damaged metal mine environments”. The delegates were visited the Cwm Rheidol and Frongoch Lead & Zinc Mines on the second day. It was very nice to meet many great experts, share knowledge, attend the field trip and discuss future opportunities. A big thanks to Peter Stanley and Bob Vaughan and their team from Natural Resources Wales for organising the great conference. HOMED Project SurveyThe HOMED project (an EU Horizon 2020 funded project) is looking at Holistic Management of Emerging Forest Pests and Diseases and has launched a survey for people working with trees, and those who are interested in identifying or managing emerging tree pests and diseases. Do try it out! Click here to access the survey! Agricultural Ecology Special Interest GroupAs chair of the Agricultural Ecology Special Interest Group, Barbara Smith organized a dinner and debate event at the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting. The group discussed the role and responsibility of scientists in direct action against climate change. Imperial College London visitCAWR Postgraduate Researcher, Chijioke Eke, gave a lecture titled 'Hydrodynamic modelling and operational oil spill response in the Humber estuary' at the SPE London meeting on Tuesday, 26th November. The event which was held at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London provided Chijioke the opportunity to share his research with industry professionals and fellow students. Fiddling in Rome? Reflections on the International Seed TreatyImage by: Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1591 The Governing Body of the UN’s International Seed Treaty (IT PGRFA) met in Rome for a whole week in November and, although, the meeting extended until after midnight on the Saturday, it ended in frustration and recriminations. HRF Patrick Mulvany reflects in this blog on what should have happened and what did not… In particular, in the context of the biodiversity, nutrition and climate emergencies, and the vital importance of heterogeneous peasant/ farmers’ seeds in addressing these crises, the failure of the Treaty’s Governing Body to act decisively in support of the rights of peasant farmers and food sovereignty is, adapting the well-known expression, as if Governments were fiddling in Rome while the world burns… As the ‘father’ of the Treaty, Professor José Esquinas Alcázar, said in his presentation, it’s not only important to maintain and enhance the diversity of crop species on-farm, but it is also essential to increase the ‘inter-varietal and intra-varietal diversity’ of these crops in farmers’ fields. In other words, enhancing heterogeneity of the agricultural biodiversity within and between crops and their varieties in productive and biodiverse ecosystems is imperative for securing future food. The existential emergencies society face can, in part, be resolved if the majority, biodiverse and agroecological food system, served by small-scale food providers in localised food webs, were to replace the damaging international food chains of the industrial food system. If decision makers in the Treaty and many other international bodies were to listen to small-scale, biodiversity-enhancing farmers and take the required actions, and, as citizens the world over, we were to ‘Eat more Biodiversity’, another biodiverse, food system that serves people and the planet is possible. Congratulations!Ibn Wahab Benin passed his PhD Viva subject to corrections. His thesis was titled: “A Critical Evaluation of Operation Cost of Oil and Gas Plays: A Retrospective review of the economic viability of the Gulf of Guinea and the North Sea”. Chijioke Eke also successfully defended his PhD work and passed with minor corrections this month. His project title was “Numerical Modelling of Spatiotemporal Variability of Environmental Factors and their Influences on Oil Transport in a Tide-Dominated Estuary: A Case Study of the Humber Estuary”. EventsA time of waste - sustainable environmental geoscience solutions with Chris Greenwell Scale, Agroecology and the Politics of Agricultural Sustainability Transitions in Sikkim, India with Colin Anderson and David Meek Publications
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