CCI Conservation Seminar - Prof. Erle Ellis

Wednesday 31st January, 4 to 5 pm, DAB Main Seminar Room

Recentering People’s Contributions to Nature, Re-Culturing Landscapes to Sustain Biodiversity

Most of terrestrial nature, including Earth’s most biodiverse landscapes, have been shaped by millennia of sustained human use. These cultured landscapes, including those sustained by indigenous peoples for millennia, and not natures without people, represent the greatest planetary opportunities for recovering and sustaining biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Even Earth’s most intensively used working landscapes, including cities and farms, are crucial to achieving a nature positive future. Transformative changes in the cultural aspirations, institutions and practices that shape landscape use have unprecedented planetary potential to enhance and expand the biodiversity sustaining capacities of cultural landscapes.

Erle Ellis is Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). A Global Highly Cited Researcher, he studies the ecology of human landscapes to inform sustainable stewardship of the biosphere. He teaches environmental science and landscape ecology, which he has also taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford’s Martin School, Lead Author of the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment, Fellow of the Global Land Programme, Senior Fellow of the Breakthrough Institute, and former member of the Anthropocene Working Group. His book, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction, was published in 2018.

Photo: Bac Son rice fields, Vietnam