The FLARE Flyer
We are thrilled to bring you the first edition of the FLARE Flyer, a quarterly newsletter for the FLARE Network. Below you will find news and stories about FLARE and our partners and information about forests and livelihoods-related events and opportunities. We welcome your suggestions and submissions of news, events, and opportunities for the next FLARE Flyer, scheduled for March. We are glad to connect with you in this new way and hope that the new year is greeting you well!
Announcements
Katia Nakamura joins the FLARE Secretariat as Associate Program Director
We are excited to announce that Dr. Katia Nakamura has joined FLARE as Associate Program Director. Katia is enhancing FLARE’s capacity to realize our mission through strategic planning and engagement with partners, strengthening our governance and communications, and facilitating research, evaluation, and learning. Her research examines the socio-ecological impacts of biodiversity conservation funding, particularly in Peru, and the effects of conservation interventions on Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Katia earned her Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was a postdoctoral researcher in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame prior to taking on this new role. She holds an MBA from the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru. She loves exploring nature, learning about different cultures, knitting, and the movies.
Events
FLARE 10th Annual Meeting, Rome, Italy, 3-7 October
This year marks FLARE’s 10-year anniversary! We hope you can join us to celebrate this milestone and plan for the future of FLARE at this year’s Annual Meeting to be held at the Auditorium Antonianum in Rome, October 3-7. The call for abstracts for the conference will be released shortly. In the lead up to the meeting, we will also seek your input about the impact FLARE has had on your professional journey and your ideas for growing and strengthening the Network at the meeting and in the years ahead.
26th IUFRO World Congress, Stockholm, Sweden, 23-29 June
The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the City of Stockholm in close collaboration with Nordic and Baltic partners, welcome delegates from all over the world to Stockholm for the 26th International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress. The Meeting theme, “Forests and Society Towards 2050,” is very relevant to FLARE.
Registration is now open for the event
Stories from the 2023 Annual Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya
Mother-Daughter duo share their passion for conservation
This story highlights University of Notre Dame Master of Global Affairs student, Beverly Ndifoin, whose career path was inspired by her mother’s environmental activism. Her mother, Honourine Wainachi Nengtoh, was a plenary speaker at the FLARE meeting, bringing her considerable insight as a highly accomplished arborist, businesswoman, and member of parliament in Cameroon.
What Lizzie learned about protecting forests and livelihoods
Notre Dame undergraduate major in Global Affairs, Lizzie Stifel (pictured left), shares how her participation in the FLARE’s 2023 Annual Meeting allowed her to showcase her research on the impact of trees in farmlands and forests on household well-being in Ethiopia and broaden her horizons as someone relatively new to research.
Best Student Oral Presentation Award
Andrea M. Vásquez Fernández won the Best Student Oral Presentation award for her work titled “Negotiating Divergences and Bridging Divides: An Interculturally Respectful Methodology with Amazonian Indigenous Peoples.”
Best Student Poster or Lightning Talk Award
Medha Sundar P D won the Best Student Poster or Lightning Talk award for her work titled “Human-wildlife conflict and poverty among forest proximate people: A household study through the lenses of Sustainable Development Goals.”
Around the Network
Professional Opportunities – Summer Fellowships
Summer Fellowship with the Initiative on the Forest Economy with the Indian School of Business – (closes 02/15/2024)
The Initiative on the Forest Economy (IoFE) at the Indian School of Business is pleased to announce a fellowship program to conduct field research in India during the summer of 2024 (mid-May to mid-August). This fellowship is dedicated to nurturing a community of emerging scholars engaged in the fields of governance for sustainability, rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), and public policies for sustainable development.
Selected candidates will design and implement a research project investigating aspects of the relationships between forests and local communities. Research questions will address issues related to community tenure, market dynamics, climate impacts, livelihood diversification, or governance challenges. The programme involves qualitative and field-based research that will help advance the fellows’ broader career trajectories as well as support engagement with policy in India.
Doctoral and postdoctoral candidates are eligible for this fellowship. Proposals from advanced master’s students and interested candidates with relevant work experience who are presently not enrolled in a PhD programme will also be considered. Prospective applicants with a foundation in Geography, Anthropology, Development Studies, Environmental Studies, and related humanistic social sciences disciplines are encouraged to apply.
The application submission deadline is 15 February 2024. Sign up for email updates on the fellowship and receive a link for an upcoming webinar on February 1, 2024.
Professional Opportunities – Post-doctoral positions
Two full-time positions at the Pulte Institute for Global Development at the University of Notre Dame. Review of applications is in process, but you can still apply until February 10.
Postdoctoral Fellow in Ecological Outcome Assessment in Complex Social-Ecological Systems – (closes 02/10/2024)
Contribute to a new research project focused on the ecological dimensions of rural development in forested regions of countries in the Global South. The position will be supervised by Professors Daniel Miller and Krister Andersson. Find more information here.
Postdoctoral Fellow in Inequality, Poverty, and Community Resource Governance – (closes 02/10/2024)
Contribute to research related to environmental policy in developing countries. The research is a collaboration with Indiana University and examines the effectiveness of selected community-based interventions when it comes to changes in economic, social, and environmental outcomes. The project will collect and analyze a variety of original field data, including household surveys, behavioral experiments, as well as in-depth interviews and focus group meetings. The research encompasses field research activities in South Asia, East Africa, and Latin America. Find more information here.
Professional Opportunities – Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor Specializing inForest Systems Social-Ecological Spatial Analysis – (reviews start 02/25/2024)
The Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota invites qualified candidates to apply for a nine-month, full-time, tenure-track assistant professor position specializing in Forest Systems Social-Ecological Spatial Analysis with responsibilities for research (50%) and teaching (50%). The successful candidate will establish a nationally recognized research program that addresses important issues affecting social-ecological forest landscapes. This research would be undertaken in collaboration with other faculty located at the University of Minnesota, as well as scientists and practitioners locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Additionally, this position will teach undergraduate and graduate courses in geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (FNRM 3131/5151) and one other current GIS or remote sensing course based on need) choosing from a variety of modalities and formats in topics such as forest and water systems, urbanization, population growth, regional migration associated with equity and justice, and others as assigned. Find more information here and apply here. Reviews start on February 25, 2024.
Featured Publication
Fischer, Harry, Chhatre, Ashwini, Duddu, Apurva, Pradhan, Nabin, Agrawal, Arun. 2023. “Community forest governance and synergies among carbon, biodiversity and livelihoods.” Nature Climate Change. vol. 13: 1340–1347
This research uses the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) database to examine how restoring forests in different tropical countries can help capture carbon, protect biodiversity, and improve local livelihoods. Findings demonstrate that empowered local forest governance can support multiple objectives of forest restoration. The article is based on the latest release of the IFRI database, which is freely available for the FLARE community to explore and use.