Internships in Grad School -- Time well spent?

Check out two new posts by Kai on the Leopold Leadership blog about the UBC biodiversity internship program, and the role of internships in graduate study. 

The first is here: Bridging the Leadership Gap: Investing in Graduate Training

The second is here: Bridging the Leadership Gap: Internships As Catalysts for Post-graduate Success

Learn more about the BRITE internship program at UBC here! And if you can contribute to this effort, please visit Biodiversity Internship Fund: Help our students help the Earth.

Two Streams of Advice ... into One River of Understanding: Co-Teaching

by Kai Chan

(Ed.: These thoughts were written November 20th, but they're equally applicable to today.)
 
Last night at 5:15pm, I sluggishly climbed the stairs to my office after another engaging but exhausting class, Toward Social-Ecological Systems (RMES 510), which I co-teach with Terre Satterfield. Despite having spent an hour talking, and more time writing, to harmonize our plans for this informal workshop-class, there were still moments of student confusion.

Two streams ... into one river. Creative Commons, via
www.onegeology.org

Terre--an interdisciplinary anthropologist--and I (an ecologist with an infusion of ethics and ecological economics) both wandered around the room, providing guidance on the student final projects, which are tackling 'small' issues like the Northern Gateway (Oilsand) Pipeline, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) in B.C., Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) in Nova Scotia. A few times, I gave advice, only to see a tell-tale wide-eyed look. "But- But, Terre said ....".

Truth is, Terre and I almost never really disagree. But in the context of advice on how to bound and target a massive topic into a useful contribution, sometimes it might seem that we do. And therein lies the learning.

All this pondering on a frigid ride home led to another exchange with Terre, and the below email to students:

Just a quick note to follow up on today's workshop: Terre and I certainly won't offer the same advice. We fully appreciate that it can be frustrating for you to receive advice that may pull you in different directions, so we do our best to iron out differences and provide a consistent and coherent message before class. But it will keep happening, and it's actually a reflection of very different ways of thinking about the same problem, or attention to different aspects/needs. And your real-time exposure to this is a very healthy tension that yields superb learning opportunities about this social-ecological space and diverse threads of academic inquiry into it, which you couldn't possibly get from one instructor alone.

All the best,
Kai (and Terre)

Long-live co-teaching, especially the interdisciplinary kind, and the learning it yields us all!

Can IPBES Make Ecosystem Service Assessments Useful? Yes (from Nicoya)—with A Few Key Tweaks

by Kai M. A. Chan
Part of a series of posts about IPBES (the UN's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) and an inside look at its processes.

I stare mesmerized out the airplane window at the verdant green sharp hills, sinuous rivers, smooth beaches and glimmering oceans of Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. As I stare, my mind wanders to my friends and colleagues flying into Turkey for the second plenary of the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES; which I blogged about here and here). Again and again, my mind returns to a central point: can IPBES help policymakers and practitioners—like those I sat with over the last two days in a sweaty Costa Rican university classroom—make and justify wise decisions to protect this 'pura vida' landscape from the downsides of the pressures that encroach?

Costa Rica’s west coast from the air—so mesmerizing
I almost missed my opportunity for a photo.

One might imagine, as many do, that Costa Rica is a well-protected paradise. It is. But it too is subject to immense pressures from a variety of economic, social, and political forces, and it too is desperately seeking insight about the social-ecological changes that loom on the horizon, and what might be done to steer the nation on a continued trajectory toward sustainable prosperity.
Back to the central question of the promise of IPBES. I vividly replay Ann Bartuska relating her experience of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) as a policymaker. One morning some thousand-plus pages were plopped down on her desk. The next week, a colleague of hers involved in the MA called her and inquired how it was going to change the decisions that federal agencies were going to make. She didn’t have the faintest clue, and while she didn’t quite say this, I got the impression that she’s still wondering.

It’s not that the MA wasn’t tremendously useful—it was. It put some core ideas (like the concept of ecosystem services, ES) on the map, and on the radar screen of countless researchers, policymakers and practitioners. But because it was so pioneering, it was too static and too coarse to inform many particular decisions. If IPBES is to build significantly on that groundwork, it must significantly advance the practice and use of ES research.

New tourist developments in the Nicoya Peninsula may be the
reason we foreigners visit, but they are also sucking water from
other uses, causing saltwater intrusions, and displacing local
people from their customary cultural uses of the shoreline.

With ES research, there is a surprising gap between understanding of nature’s contributions to people, and how that understanding is being applied by policymakers, corporations, and NGOs. To cut to the chase, my argument here is that IPBES can significantly help close that gap in three ways.

In Costa Rica, as in many cases, what's needed is an understanding of how what matters to people would be affected by change. In the case of our brand new project in the Nicoya Peninsula, we are focusing on climate change and associated hydroecological changes, but we’re also considering new tourist developments and changing agricultural practices.

Best practice for ES research gets at this directly. Conceptually, it's actually very simple. The research should involve:

The vast expansion of sugar cane
plantations changes the landscape,
both hydrologically (through irrigation)
and socially.

•    Understanding how the relevant components or processes in nature ('ecological endpoints') are likely to change due to the change in question (call it X).
•    Understanding how social change associated with X might change access and demand for these things. (This is a relatively new point, which I and others have been pushing hard in recent years—e.g., here.)
•    How much the resulting changes in diverse ES (including the above changes in supply, access, demand) matter to people, ‘valuated’ in terms that lend themselves to be integrated into decision-making.

It's puzzling: although the first and third points are well-established best practice from over a decade ago, they are not being taken up in research (as Terre Satterfield and I show in manuscript being revised) or in policy or practice. Instead, ES research is mostly either about the biology (often not the change) or about the value of whole ecosystem components or processes (not the value of how they are likely to change). It’s less surprising that the newer second point is not being taken up.

Policymakers and practitioners are no better. Furthermore, the poor progress in research is connected to the apparent demand for simplistic ES assessments. Environmental assessments, for example, seem to pay lip service (at best) to the idea of ES, and almost never include ES impacts, e.g., to compare with other costs and benefits. From my experience with NGOs of all sizes, citizen groups, and government agencies at all levels (from municipal to international), it seems that the vast majority of demand for ES research does not clearly target ES change. Accordingly, the result is often simple assessments of standing stocks—often ES valuation without underlying basis in social or ecological change.

I never thought I'd say this, but I think there's a golden opportunity for an intergovernmental body (IPBES) to leverage large-scale change through simple interventions.

IPBES is a major new effort that is poised to undertake some extremely important work. And I've seen firsthand the passion, intellect, and savvy of those involved (reported here).

At the moment however, IPBES seems to be fueling the fire of current demand for superficial ES science. How? In three unintended ways. By (1) considering biophysical assessment only separate from valuation assessment; (2) being apparently silent on the need to characterize the social changes in demand and access; and (3) treating non-monetary and monetary valuation options as separate alternatives.

Local people used to use the beaches—for their own purposes,
some key to their cultural identity—where foreign tourists now
have obvious priority. Now the local presence is for the pleasure
of selling beach-side massages.

Regarding (3), non-monetary and monetary valuation metrics are not alternative methods for valuating the same things. Instead, there are some changes (or aspects of changes) that can and should be valuated in monetary terms, such as the material property damage associated with floods. While there are real economic effects, we cannot pretend that the resulting monetary values also capture the emotional upheaval of dislocation or the spiritual losses associated with certain cherished things.

It would take but small changes to the current proposed IPBES docs to provide specific guidance about how to do ES valuation (of biophysical and social changes) as outlined above. It basically involves turning (1)-(3) on their heads, explicitly calling for and guiding the characterization of biophysical and social change and their integration with valuation, and also providing guidance on the integration

I have seen how such guidance from IPBES could make a tremendous difference. Not through the assessments, but rather through the recommendations for how agencies and organizations ought to do assessments for their own purposes is exactly what these agencies and organizations most look to IPBES to provide.

An interdisciplinary group (just a portion of the FuturAgua team
assembled by Tim McDaniels) assembles to strategise. From left
to right, Douw Steyn, Jennifer Romero, Silja Hund, Mark Johnson,
Raffaele Vignola, Cam Webster, and Paige Olmsted.

In my mind’s eye, we fast-forward three years. Paige Olmsted and I, with the rest of our research team, are presenting just such an assessment of ES change in the Nicoya Peninsula to the regional government officials, and representatives of various stakeholder groups with whom we are cultivating budding relationships. It may be wishful thinking, but I can see their bright eyes and excited nods as they imagine a half-dozen ways they can take this information and change policy and practice.

Sometimes Conservation Needs a Good Villain

Cathryn Clarke Murray, CHANS lab affiliate and Marine Science Officer at WWF Canada, recently posted a blog on the WWF website about her role in the Fishzilla incident in Vancouver last year. Read all about it here! 

Beautiful Wings, Bitter Tragedy

by Alejandra Echeverri

His wings are bluish-green, glistening in the sunlight. They have a black band in the middle. His abdomen is yellow. He is 20 cm in length, flying free in the rainforest canopies of New Guinea. He is the Queen Alexandra’s Wingspan, the largest butterfly on the planet. He is so beautiful that some are willing to pay US$10,000 for his wings[1]. And what do they do with them? Put them in a box, together with other wings of beautiful butterflies that come from all over the world to build up an eccentric collection of dead butterflies. My stomach turns at the thought, butterflies behind glass: beauty seen, beauty not felt … lifeless.[2]

Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing Camila Barrera Daza (2013)

For years, people all over the world have traded wildlife illegally. Their purpose is to meet consumer demands for trophies, exotic foods, decoration, traditional medicines and collections.[3] Wildlife trade is a multi-billion dollar industry that threatens biodiversity and triggers ecological problems. For instance, one ecological consequence of wildlife trade is the cascading ecosystem-level effects of removing species[4]. Poaching tigers for their coats, for example, might drive them to extinction. Thus, if tigers become extinct, food chains will likely be severely altered because of the removal of a top predator. Wildlife trade also introduces invasive species. As an example, ornamental fish have been traded to meet the demands of aquarium hobbyists, but in some cases not all the fish in the market are sold. Many sellers release these unsold fish into aquatic habitats where they can potentially threaten the persistence of native species by outcompeting them[5].

Why is the story of butterflies an important example of wildlife trading? Illegal trade of butterflies has more demand than one might imagine, and it is linked to ecological problems such as the loss of pollination as well as social problems like drug trafficking and violence.

People often believe that collectors—particularly those collecting eccentric things, like butterflies—are few in number and spend lots of money maintaining their hobbies. But in fact there are many collectors from the United States, Germany, and Japan (where an estimated 1 in 10 males are serious collectors) interested in buying rare butterflies [6]. In her recent book ‘Winged obsession’, Jessica Speart showed that ‘illegal trafficking of butterflies brings around US$200 million a year to global economy’¹. Moreover, harvesting and exploitation of butterflies has increased because they are now trendy and ‘used in greeting cards, paper weights and even jewelry’[7]. The illegal trade involves not just few butterflies, but many thousands!

So… What ecological and social problems are linked to the trade of butterflies? Among insects they are the second-most important pollinators globally[8]. Butterflies pollinate large, showy flowers, pink or purple in color and usually scented, such as hydrangeas or lilacs[9]. Thus, killing and trafficking them can lead to the loss of pollination as an ecosystem service in flower crops[10]. Butterflies are also at the base of food chains; a reduction of their populations would impact the populations of species that prey upon them, such as birds or bats. Moreover, each species of butterfly uses a specific plant or a group of plants for egg laying and larval development; therefore butterflies’ extinction can trigger a coextinction process between them and their host plants[11].

In addition to potential ecological and economic problems from butterflies’ removal, more complex social dynamics involving illegal activities arise from butterfly and wildlife trade. As a matter of fact, the primary actors involved in these activities are criminal syndicates, insurgency groups and terrorist groups^4,[12]. In Latin America for example, there is evidence that the routes employed for trafficking drugs are the same as those employed for illicit wildlife and operated by the same criminal bands⁴. Thus, trafficking butterflies (as an example) may often be linked to violence, corruption and highly organized criminal groups (like the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia or the Italian Mafia)⁴. Thus, if someone buys a butterfly for a collection, they may be contributing to financing criminal bands that commit terrorist acts.

I know that this topic seems overly dramatic. Connecting butterflies trade with criminal violence? You may think this is too extreme. But the truth is, environmental problems are intertwined with social problems in one way or another. To finish, I want to share with you my ideas about how to deal with this problem:

•    Raise awareness. Did you know the prevalence and significance of the butterfly trade before? Go tell your friends!
•    Stop buying butterfly cards, bracelets, earrings, etc., and speak out whenever you see or hear  about it. We as consumers have the power to shape the market and reduce the pressures leading to illegal butterfly trade.
•    Work to prohibit rare butterfly collections, perhaps by sending letters to politicians or starting  campaigns. In that way we can better prevent extinction of certain species-at-risk.

These are some I can come up with, but what do you think we should do? 

---

[1] Speart, J.  2011. Winged obsession: The pursuit of the World’s Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler(First edition). Harper Collins Publishers. New York: USA.
[2] Modified from quote by Andrew Hawkes (artist).
[3] Rosen, G.E. & Smith, K.F. 2010.  Summarizing the evidence on the international trade in illegal wildlife. Ecohealth, 7: 24-32.
[4] Wyler, L.S. & Sheikh, P.A. 2008. CRS Report for Congress, International Illegal Trade in Wildlife: Threats and US Policy. Congressional Research Service.  The Library of Congress.
[5] Padilla, D.K. & Williams, S.L. 2004. Beyond ballast water: aquarium and ornamental trades as sources of invasive species in aquatic ecosystems. Front Ecol Environ, 2 (3): 131-138.
[6] Webster, D. 1997 (February 6^th). The looting and smuggling and fencing and hoarding of impossibly precious, feathered and scaly wild things. The New York Times Magazine, 6: 26-33.
[7] Sriram, J. 2010 (October 10^th). Illegal trade of butterflies. Darjeeling Times. Available at: http://www.darjeelingtimes.com/opinions/general/1677-illegal-trade-of-butterflies.html
[8] Colleen, Z. 2011. Powerful pollinators. Maclean’s (Toronto), 124 (5): 7.
[9] Willmer, P. 1953. Pollination and floral ecology. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press. 778 p.
[10] Losey, J.E. & Vaughan, M. The economic value of ecological services provided by insects. Bioscience, 56(4): 311-322.
[11] Koh, L.P., Dunn, R.R., Sodhi, N.S., Colwell, R.K., Proctor, H.C. & Smith, V.C. Species Coextinctions and the Biodiversity Crisis. 2004. Science, 305(1632-1634).
[12] Zimmerman, M.E. 2003. Black Market for Wildlife: Combating Transnational Organized Crime in the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Vand. J. Transnat'l L., 36: 1657.

Who is Conservation For?

This is the question posed by Paul Voosen, senior science writer with the Chronicle for Higher Education, in his piece published online earlier this week that addresses an ongoing discussion in the conservation world. Paul visited the CHANS Lab group this summer while researching this article, and has a follow up blog post that includes some excerpts from his interview with Kai that addresses a couple of neat ideas that were not discussed in great detail in the larger article. Let us know what you think! 

CHANS lab well represented at North Pacific Marine Science meeting

I have been attending meetings of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) for over 10 years. The week-long meetings have always been the definitive place to hear about cutting edge physical and biological oceanographic studies of the North Pacific, and the influence of these physical and lower-trophic level effects on important marine species including marine mammals, birds, and commercial fishes.

However in recent years, thanks to the objectives of the overarching FUTURE (Forecasting and Understanding Trends, Uncertainty and Responses to North Pacific Marine Ecosystems) program and its focus on engagement, the PICES community has successfully broadened the types of science represented. It now includes a substantive human components section, as well as quality science on how multiple impacts may influence coastal communities, and the latest approaches to ocean monitoring. All told, the meeting now presents a stimulating, vertically integrated buffet of science from physical oceanography all the way up to human values.

At this year's meeting, held in Nanaimo, BC, CHANS lab was well represented in a number of these themes. I was pleased to have an opportunity to give a plenary talk on the opening day of the conference describing some key aspects of my thesis work related to model uncertainty. Kai's talks were the highlight of the human dimensions session, where he described our British Columbia Coastal Ecosystem Services project, and his work with NCEAS on integrating cultural values into decision making. The value of expert knowledge was addressed by our associate Stephen Ban, who explored the use of a Bayesian Belief Network to assess climate change impacts on the Great Barrier Reef. Our lab was also well represented in the cumulative impacts session, with post-doc Cathryn Clarke Murray doing a bang-up job on a method for assessing direct and indirect risk from human activities (she was awarded best presentation in the Marine Environmental Quality Sessions!), and by former post-doc Rebecca Martone (now at Center for Ocean Solutions) presenting some critical work on ground-truthing predictive models of cumulative impacts.

All in all, it was a great week for getting some of the cutting-edge work underway here at CHANS lab out there, and for us to get a taste of what is going on elsewhere around the North Pacific. You can search for our abstracts (or browse the entire abstract book!) here. Who knows - you might find the science as interesting as we do, and join us at the next annual meeting!

Edward Gregr