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SUMMARY:The Political Economy of Conservation and Food Security - Professo
 r Bhaskar Vira\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20220311T173000Z
DTEND:20220311T183000Z
UID:TALK164221@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:Bhaskar Vira is Professor of Political Economy\, and Head of D
 epartment\, at the Department of Geography\, University of Cambridge. He i
 s a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College\, and an Honorary Fellow of St John’s 
 College. He was Founding Director of the University of Cambridge Conservat
 ion Research Institute\, and is a Trustee of the World Conservation Monito
 ring Centre. In 2018\, he was honoured with the Royal Geographical Society
 ’s Busk Medal\, in recognition of his contributions to interdisciplinary
  research on environment and development. In 2021\, he was elected as a Fe
 llow of the Academy of Social Sciences.\nBhaskar’s research examines the
  ways in which societies engage with land and nature\, and the political a
 nd economic context within which communities\, businesses and policy maker
 s make choices and negotiate trade-offs over alternative resource access a
 nd use strategies. He works on the dynamics of societal transformations in
  contemporary South Asia\, especially present and potential futures of agr
 arian and peri-urban lives and livelihoods. He has contributed extensively
  to global science policy processes and dialogues in the context of food a
 nd agriculture\, and Chaired the IUFRO-led Global Forest Expert Panel on F
 orests and Food.\n\nHow do we feed the world and ensure equitable access t
 o nutrition without undermining the planet’s life support systems? How d
 o we reverse the decline of nature and biodiversity while meeting the expe
 cted needs of over 9 billion people by the end of this century? These are 
 the challenging questions that lie at the heart of this lecture. Even befo
 re the Covid pandemic\, the world was moving away from the commitment to e
 nd global hunger and malnutrition by 2030\; the pandemic has accelerated t
 hese trends. At the same time\, there is growing evidence of an unpreceden
 ted decline in nature since the 1970s\, coupled with the projected impacts
  of climate change\, likely to be the most significant driver of biodivers
 ity loss in the next couple of decades. These interconnected global challe
 nges take place in a context of increased pressure on existing land\, and 
 the competing demands of diverse groups on a finite resource base. Address
 ing these needs involves explicitly acknowledging trade-offs\, and finding
  ways to enhance synergies between different objectives. Options that maxi
 mise productivity in increasingly specialised landscapes\, separating agri
 culture from conservation\, need to be evaluated in comparison with more i
 ntegrated landscape mosaics\, which attempt to simultaneously deliver food
  production\, conservation outcomes and livelihood benefits. These alterna
 tives involve different forms of knowledge\, diverse institutional structu
 res\, and contrasting structures for governance and decision making. This 
 lecture will explore some of the issues that frame difficult choices over 
 conservation and food security in the twenty first century\, and describe 
 recent thinking on strategies to meet these important global objectives.\n
LOCATION:Lady Mitchell Hall\, Sidgwick Avenue
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