Every quarter, the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences holds weekly SEFS Seminars with faculty and experts. These seminars provide a space for presentation and discussion of a variety of topics relevant to the school and its students. Each seminar is held at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesdays via Zoom. After each presentation, a discussion time will be held. You can watch previous Seminars on the SEFS YouTube channel.

The SEFS Seminar Series is made possible with support from the Corkery Family Environmental and Forest Sciences Director’s Endowed Chair fund.

Spring 2021 Seminars:

April 7 – Ruth DeFries, Columbia University
Title: “Lessons from Nature for an Uncertain Future”

April 14 – None in lieu of the 2021 Sustaining Our World Lecture with Beronda L. Montgomery

April 21 – Reem Hajjar, Assistant Professor in Integrated Human and Ecological Systems Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University
Title: “Community-based management for forests and livelihoods: Global trends and local perspectives”
Abstract: Over the past 40 years, community forest management has been promoted as way to merge environmental conservation with economic development and natural resource rights agendas. The rationale underpinning the decentralization of forest management rights to local communities rests on the assumption that such communities can make better use of place and time-specific information than more centralized forms of natural resource governance, and that their vested interests in maintaining natural ecosystems, on which their livelihoods depend, can lead to more sustainable practices. Yet, while there are many examples showing that community forest management can promote positive outcomes for forests and people, many initiatives have also failed to achieve all of their intended objectives, leading to substantial socioeconomic and environmental tradeoffs. In this talk, I will present results of two recent studies that help shed light on some of these tradeoffs. The first is a recently published systematic review of community forestry literature, which describes global trends in community forest outcomes, and points to which contextual factors lead to more positive outcomes. The second is an in-depth case study of community forestry in Oaxaca, Mexico, that seeks to better understand how communities make decisions to advance certain objectives, such as profits from a community forest business, at the expense of others, such as participation, transparency and trust in local forest governance. Both studies reveal how theoretical “win-wins” belie social challenges that face community forests.  

April 28 – T. Jane Zelikova, University of Wyoming
Title: “Scientism – Blending Science and Activism”

May 5 – Vicki Christiansen, Chief, US Forest Service & Paul Anderson, PNW Research Station
Title: “Creating a Culture of Inclusion and Equity that Awakens and Strengthens All People’s Connection to the Land”

May 12 – Gary Morishima, Quinault Indian Nation
Title: “Indian Forestry: The First Stewards, Rooted in the Past, Acting Today To Create the Future”

May 19 – Jalonne White-Newsome, Empower4People
Title: “Who’s Most Vulnerable: The System or the People? Our Role in Advancing Climate and Environmental Justice”

May 26 – Peter Kennedy, University of Minnesota
Title: “Do Interactions Among Different Fungal Guilds Control Carbon Cycling in Forest Soils?”