Tropical Forest Landscapes 101: Conservation & Restoration
Published: February 16, 2022
Description
Conserving and restoring tropical forest landscapes offers an opportunity to address pressing environmental and social challenges. Effective conservation and restoration initiatives support multiple objectives, including ecosystem functioning, climate change mitigation and adaptation, food security, and economic growth.
This seven-week course explores the technical, social, and funding aspects of this timely topic. The materials in this course offer a selection of key content from the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative's yearlong Tropical Forest Landscapes: Conservation, Restoration & Sustainable Use online certificate program.
Course Takeaways
- The importance of tropical forest landscapes and the actors and motivations driving restoration and conservation efforts.
- How tropical forest ecosystems work, and how they relate to climate change and biodiversity.
- Fundamental human dimensions to consider in any project, including human livelihoods and local property rights.
- Conservation theory and dynamic aspects of conserving species and landscapes.
- A spectrum of restoration strategies and key considerations for restoration, such as species selection and planting design.
- How agroforestry systems can integrate trees and production to meet different goals.
- Basic financial concepts and potential sources of conservation and restoration funding.
Meet the Instructors
Dr. Eva Garen has spent almost twenty-five years working on the social aspects of conservation and development in the tropics. Prior to becoming the Director of ELTI in 2012, Eva was a technical advisor on the social aspects of REDD+ with Conservation International's Science and Knowledge Division. Eva also worked with USAID’s Forestry and Biodiversity Teams in Washington D.C. as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For her postdoctoral research in Panama at STRI, she worked with cattle ranchers and smallholders on issues of native species reforestation and land restoration in mosaic tropical forest landscapes. Eva completed her M.E.S. and Ph.D. at the Yale School of the Environment, with a concentration in social ecology.
Full Biography
