Integrated Strategies for Wildfire Resilience & Recovery in Climate, Biodiversity, Land & Health
Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, Royal School of Mines, Room G01, London SW7 2AZ
About this Event
Wildfire is an essential ecological process in many ecosystems and has played a prominent role in the evolution of biodiversity. In response to rapid global change, however, extreme wildfires are increasing and natural fire regimes are being altered, driving large-scale species extinctions, and compounding climate change impacts. As the wildfire crisis accelerates, there is an urgent need for globally-coordinated trans-disciplinary research to understand the causes and consequences of changing wildfire patterns.
The Global Wildfire Collective (GWC), an initiative led by the Conservation Biology Institute, facilitates collaboration among research scientists, national policymakers, local communities, firefighting agencies and industry partners. The GWC is focused on advancing wildfire research, knowledge sharing, and capacity building to address the climate, biodiversity and land crises at local, regional, and global scales. The GWC is collaborating with other wildfire resilience initiatives to increase complementarity among common efforts.
Since 1992, Parties to the UN Rio Conventions on Climate, Biodiversity and Desertification have been engaged in global efforts to reduce global carbon emissions, advance biodiversity-positive policies, and create sustainable land management practices. Yet, while wildfire poses serious challenges for each of these conventions, it has traditionally been studied in disciplinary silos without accounting for the critical interconnections among human and ecological systems.
To increase policy coherence, a growing number of Parties to these conventions are urging the creation of a UN Joint Work Programme on Wildfire Resilience and Recovery, to help address the growing threat of wildfire to climate, biodiversity, land use and health. This event will describe wildfire impacts in each of these areas and explore collaborative approaches to accelerate action on resilience and recovery.
Please join us for this lively, interaction discussion with representatives from the research, NGO, financial services and communications sectors. The event will include a networking reception.
Invited panelists:
Dr. Adriana Ford, Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment & Society
Dr. Iokiñe Rodriguez, University of East Anglia (UEA)
Dr. Johan Sjöström, Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE)
Dr. Fantina Tedim, Universidade do Porto (U. Porto)
Dr. Arindam Roy, Clean Air Fund
Dr. Santiago Garcia Lloré, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
Mr. Karl Peet, Conservation Biology Institute (CBI)
Conservation Biology Institute, Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society, Global Climate and Health Alliance
The Conservation Biology Institute is a non-partisan, science-based NGO providing advanced conservation science, technology, and planning to empower partners in solving the world’s critical ecological challenges.
The Global Wildfire Collective, a flagship initiative of the Conservation Biology Institute, facilitates strategic collaboration among research scientists, national policymakers, local communities, firefighting agencies and industry partners to enable wildfire resilience and recovery for ecological and social systems.
The Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society aims to radically transform the scientific and practical understanding of wildfire, so that society can understand, predict and manage wildfire more effectively in the future.
The Global Climate and Health Alliance unites and mobilises the health community worldwide and accelerates climate action to protect and improve health for all. This includes addressing health risks from air pollution due to wildfires worldwide.
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