Public Engagement in Landscape Restoration: the Importance of Ecosystem Governance (March 2020)
Channel: CEM ERTG
Date: 2020-04-01

IUCN CEM Ecosystem Restoration Thematic Group Webinar Series

Find the complete Series Playlist here: 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy4Yp_6qh0uEz_oq53_UhEDLHUZNPljRU  

March 2020

Bringing Public Engagement in Landscape Restoration: the Importance of Ecosystem Governance

Humans are not only beneficiaries of ecosystem services, but they also are major influencers of ecosystem changes. Despite numerous management approaches being developed to ensure biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, such as landscape restoration, ecosystem governance structure generally remains to be an elusive concept at best. Inspired by the ongoing discussions about what exactly it means in practice and how to forge it into an effective tool for global change, this presentation offers the viewpoints of the IUCN’s Ecosystem Governance Group and the importance to examine how it is implemented in projects to ensure sustainability. For an effective ecosystem governance to occur and in order to serve the global community in the times of global climate and environmental changes, several key aspects such as devolution of power, importance of community participation, and inclusive governance through environmental justice principles should be integrated. Some of the major components to be integrated into decision making, planning and community development work are analyzed using a couple of examples that aim to enhance biodiversity through restoration. These aspects relate to the global agenda pushed forward by the United Nations including the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Decade on Restoration.

Dr. Vasseur is a full professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Brock University where she is also a member of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre. Since 2014, she holds the UNESCO Chair on Community Sustainability: From Local to Global at Brock. Her research program is highly interdisciplinary and links issues such as community-based ecosystem management, climate change adaptation and resilience, and sustainable agriculture, linking issues of human and ecosystem health. She works in China, where she is a visiting scholar at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. Her work in Ecuador focuses on the community sustainability and ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change of rural indigenous communities in the Andean region of the Chimborazo. In Canada, in addition of her research program in sustainable agriculture, climate change, and ecosystem management, she has been working with various groups on environmental stewardship, especially regarding conservation. She is also involved in women in STEM in her program and as the current past president of the Canadian Coalition for Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology. She is President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO). She also is the vice-chair for North American Region of the Commission for Ecosystem Management at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and leads the thematic group on Ecosystem Governance