Three SNRE researchers have been selected to contribute climate-change adaptation research and analysis to the fifth climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The comprehensive assessments examine climate change in terms of physical science, adaptation, and mitigation of impacts, and provide governments with sound scientific knowledge of climate change.
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) has recognized SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum for her "long and distinguished service" to the scientific community and her ecological work in the public interest. Dean Bierbaum will receive the Distinguished Service Citation at the ESA's 95th annual meeting in August in Pittsburgh.
Agrawal, colleague link land management, ownership and climate change in forests of developing world
Studying 80 forest "commons" in more than a dozen developing nations, a University of Michigan researcher and his University of Illinois colleague have found links between local ownership and control of those forests and the fight against climate change. They found that greater local ownership and input into forest management appear to keep these areas, also called forest commons, from being overharvested or otherwise misused, thereby increasing their ability to capture carbon and mitigate or slow the effects of climate change. Their findings, based on data collected on three continents, appear in a paper published online Oct. 5 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors are Arun Agrawal, a professor and associate dean of the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment, and Ashwini Chhatre of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jan L. McAlpine, a leading U.S. government advisor, policy maker, negotiator and facilitator on international issues, has assumed a new role at the University of Michigan to contribute to and learn about collaborative research and education on environmental sustainability. The 17-year government-service veteran, currently on a one-year sabbatical from the U.S. Department of State, is serving as a senior research fellow with Natural Resources and Environment and the first visiting scholar at the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.