Innovative and immersive sessions

INNOVATIVE AND IMMERSIVE SESSIONS

PIIS-1

CHEFS AND COOKS AS CHANGE-MAKERS IN THE FOOD SYSTEM: LEVERAGING THE INNOVATION POTENTIAL OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND TRADITIONAL FOOD FOR CREATING A MORE SUSTAINABLE AND JUST FOOD SYSTEM

Date: 9-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Laura Pereira & Rafael Calderon-Contreras

This innovative session aims to bring food practitioners from the global South together to discuss the importance of local and indigenous knowledge and foods for meeting sustainability and human wellbeing objectives. Instead of relying on academic inputs, the session will comprise of actual practitioners in the food system that are acting to change the status quo, hence them being referred to as "change-makers". The session will culminate in a discussion about how to raise the profile of this work within the academic community and potentially draft the outline of a transdisciplinary research project for which funding could be applied.

In the first half, chefs from South Africa and Mexico will be asked to share their work as change-makers in their local food systems, highlighting the importance that local indigenous foods and traditional knowledge play in creating a more sustainable food system. There will also be the chance to sample and experiment with local, indigenous ingredients from Mexican gastronomic landscapes. Participants will then be able to ask these practitioners questions about their work. It is envisioned that an academic paper will result from these inputs. The second half of the session will be a brainstorming session on setting up a research project on the topic of traditional foods, indigenous knowledge and the role of chefs as change-makers in the food system. The session will focus on defining research questions, potential funding sources and a list of those interested in taking the project forward.

We welcome all participants, but would welcome especially those with a background of working with indigenous knowledge and indigenous groups. Anyone with a passion for finding innovative solutions for making the food system more just and more sustainable would also be encouraged to participate.

PIIS-3

THE SUSTAINABILITY HYPE: CLIMATE CHANGE, NANITES, AND NUCLEAR ZOMBIES

Date: 8-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Sebastian Thomas

This session brings leading experts and practitioners together to explore complex sustainability dilemmas and social-ecological challenges and opportunities. The audience is engaged, enlightened, and amused, and the Hypothetical format produces unique data that inform transformative sustainability science research.

Scenario and role-playing activities have been used as learning tools for decades and centuries – experiential learning has a long tradition in the medical, legal, business, and other disciplines. Since 2016 we have pioneered a novel, integrative approach to teaching and sustainability research built on existing pedagogies and cutting edge science. The "Hypothetical" is a panel discussion in which participants take on the roles of important actors in an unfolding scenario that explores ethical and practical conundrums in the context of sustainability crises – climate change, governance, migration, resource security, and technology are all key features of our storylines. The Hypothetical is challenging, humorous, and sometimes confronting, and directly engages audience members through online tools – they are active participants in the unfolding drama. The Hypothetical is a powerful teaching tool, but also a novel and valuable investigative format, in the context of normative, anticipatory, and transformative sustainability science research.

To date participants in our hypotheticals have included the Chief Scientist at Melbourne Water, the Chair of Sustainability Victoria, director of corporate services at the State Environmental Protection Agency, a prominent journalist from the Guardian, a sustainability entrepreneur, Director of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, and other VIPs. Participants should be people with high-level professional expertise and experience in diverse areas – from academia, industry and business, government, and civil society. The participants should also be comfortable in public forums, and willing to engage in a remarkable activity that is not always entirely serious, and very spontaneous.

PIIS-5

EDUCATING 'GLOCALLY': PLACE-BASED RESEARCH IN INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION

Date: 10-Nov-17

Time: 12.30 - 14.00

Chairs:Leonie Bellina

This special session is intended to foster intensive and creative exchange on possibilities and challenges of sustainability education that includes place based transdisciplinary research (PBTD). Connecting such study programs transnationally, and especially between “Global South” and “North”, offers opportunities to develop a “glocal” understanding: experiencing the geographic, political, and cultural specificities of sustainability issues and transformation pathways, as well as the global connections and trajectories of those issues. The second objective is to seed an international network of researchers, educators, and students interested in building such innovative PBTD-education formats and connect then south-south and south-north.

The session will address three elements in depth: 1) educating differently: a place-based, transdisciplinary curriculum 2) making it work: a local and virtual, transnational teaching-learning-environment 3) developing global sustainability: engaging social-environmental justice across differences. Examples from the Global Classroom, a curriculum-reform project based on “glocal” education through connecting PBTD in international student-research teams, will serve as starting points for the group exchange. Goals of the session are to: - exchange different conceptions, conditions, and needs for PBTD - combine knowledge towards developing successful education that includes PBTD - discuss conditions for meaningful transnational, especially GS-GN collaborations in such education - start a network that increases opportunities for international collaborations between participants and universities.

We welcome everyone who is interested in place-based sustainability education, transnational research/education projects, and in particular meaningful South-North collaborations. In particular: - educators practicing research based (sustainability) teaching & learning - researchers doing place-based transdisciplinary research, involving/supervising students - students involved in research-based learning - curriculum developers and program directors interested in HESD that includes research-based education and international programs/collaborations. Questions regarding and experiences with approaches to decolonizing collaborative knowledge production towards informing global sustainability efforts more equitably, and how to educate in such a manner, are explicitly invited.

PIIS-6

SCIENCE FOR TRANSFORMATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SCIENCE

Date: 8-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Robert (Bob) Scholes

Science (broadly defined), has played a prominent role in making the case for transformation of the society-nature interaction. It could also conduct the research which informs society about possible transformed states which could be sustainable, and by what pathways they might be reached. In the process, however, science may itself be transformed, either intentionally (how does it need to change in order to fulfil the above roles, and to survive the transition with critical values intact) or as an unintended consequence of the new regime.

This workshop will explore and generate ideas about how organised science (academies in particular), could reconfigure in order to be resilient and effective in the 21st Century. The outcome will be an input, among others, to the Inter-Academy Panel Working Group on "Improving Scientific Input to Global Policymaking: Strategies for Attaining the Sustainable Development Goals”

We welcome a diverse set of participants, including but not restricted to: experienced scientists (“academicians”) with a deep knowledge of how science has been organised in the 20th century; young scientists whose careers will extend far into the 21st century; specialists in new modes of social organisation driven by ICT; political economists with a feeling for how change is effected; behavioral scientists with ideas about decision-making; philosophers and historians of science.

PIIS-7

TRADEOFF! INTERACTIVE TRAINING GAME

Date: 10-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 16.30

Chair: Henry Borrebach

Attendees to this session will be led in playing one of the Natural Capital Project's training games, Tradeoff! The game is designed to introduce players to the concept of trade-offs and synergies, and in making informed development decisions utilizing natural capital information. Game-play also simulates a collaborative decision-making activity where multiple, heterogeneous values (across sectors) are represented. Session attendees will form teams and play the game, followed by discussion of the game and its possible application in various field contexts.

Attendees will:

Play the Tradeoff! game in full
Learn about the concepts of trade-offs and synergies
Simulate using ecosystem service information in a decision-making process
Learn about how the game can be used for education and stakeholder engagement
Discuss the pros and cons of how Tradeoff! introduces these concepts to its players

Our game is designed to be playable by participants from a wide range of backgrounds. We anticipate that practitioners, academics, and students will be interested in playing, and in learning how they can use the game with their own project teams, students, and/or communities.

PIIS-9

GREEN AND BLUE INFRASTRUCTURE IN SUPPORT OF HUMAN WELL-BEING?

Date: 8-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Erik Andersson

We want to take a fresh look at alleged nature-based solutions from a social-ecological systems perspective. Explicitly accounting for cross-scale and cross-boundary interactions, should provide insights into the system interactions that either facilitate the realisation of benefits or render the "solutions' inert. Green and blue infrastructure and its role in resilience building and for human well-being in an increasingly urbanized world need more global attention. Our hope is that this session can help build momentum within PECS and make it one of the platforms for critically thinking about the nature of cities.

This session will highlight three broad concerns that need to be addressed when planning and managing green and blue infrastructure: 1) Multifunctionality and perceived values, how and under what conditions are benefits provided by green and blue infrastructure appreciated by people; 2) Accessibility and equitability, the factors influencing the distribution of realised benefits among urban residents; 3) Resilience, in the sense of how we can ensure the continuation of the flows of benefits to beneficiaries over time. We believe these concerns to be universal, but the factors most important for their realisation will be widely different. We hope to expand on our experiences from Europe, Africa and North America and discuss which contextual factors that are most relevant in different settings. We want to generate new ideas (and collaborations) for how to think about cities and embedded green and blue infrastructure.

This will be a deep conversation session introduced and framed by a first presentation by Erik Andersson. The session is then open to presentations from participants based on experiences from working with green and blue infrastructure as part of SES. The presentations will be followed by a challenge to the audience - what are the key factors for unlocking ecosystem services and how do their relative importance change with local/regional context? Format and design of the discussion will be adapted to the group size.

We want a diversity of perspectives, confirmed so far are presentations from New York (Timon McPhearson) and Durban (Patrick O'Farrell), and we hope to attract presenters (and participants) from as many countries and different contexts as possible, and representing different approaches and knowledge traditions. We believe the three concerns will resonate with practitioners as well as scholars, and hope to have both groups represented among the first speakers and of course in the discussion.

PIIS-10

SOCIAL TIPPING POINTS

Date: 10-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 16.30

Chair: Jacopo Baggio & Michael Schoon

The currently diverse conceptualizations of social tipping points (STPs) limit our understanding of this social-ecological system feature. Building on an analysis of these definitions, this session will present case studies of STPs and create space for the discussion of STP knowledge gaps. These include how to incorporate cognitive scales into analyses in addition to social, spatial and temporal scales, whether there are scale limits to the usefulness of the STP concept, and what sources of data allow sufficient parameterizations? This session will further research by an interdisciplinary group to demonstrate how they can be utilized to build deliberate transformational capacity.

The session will allow the organizers (an interdisciplinary group already collaboratively researching STPs, from within academic institutions) to expand our collaborations to include a wider range of stakeholders, with the result of deeper, transdisciplinary engagement. A series of four speed presentations will introduce utilizations of the STP concept from different geographical and scale perspectives. To maximize participation three breakout groups will be created, to enable discussions to occur in parallel around themes emerging from the presentations, i.e. the relationship with cognition, interactions with scale, and methods of studying STPs. Closing as the whole group will allow all participants to learn what others discussed and give feedback. The session will support network-building, with the intention of identifying a range of case studies that could be synthesized within a special issue, and potential networks and research questions for future projects investigating the potential for STP theory to help build deliberate transformational capacity.

We welcome academics, decision-makers, policy-advisors, and representatives of international initiatives and organizations with experiences/studies to share regarding social tipping points i.e. rapid, non-linear change in social dynamics, nested within a social-ecological system framing, or simply an interest in this concept and how it can be applied to building deliberate transformational capacity. Early-career researchers welcomed, and particularly those with case studies from a range of geographical, institutional, and disciplinary contexts.

PIIS-14

COMMUNITY RESPONSES IN TIMES OF CRISIS:

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Date: 8-Nov-17

Time: 12.30 - 14.00

Chairs: Ilse Geijzendorffer, Evangelia Drakou & Elisa Oteros-Rozas

The ongoing global crisis - biodiversity, financial, political –drives and transforms socio-ecological systems. The established top-down governance systems considered to safeguard public goods and human well-being, have not demonstrated to be necessarily a safe bet for society. Within the failing top-down approaches, local bodies and civil society groups pro-actively step up to fill the inability of the governance systems to safeguard their livelihoods and manage natural resources sustainably. Through autonomous, bottom-up, self-organized initiatives, such societal groups drive transformations that generate alternative dynamic socio-ecological systems. While such systems have been studied in the past, the reality of the current context generates real life evidence of new types of responses and adaptation mechanisms. Can such initiatives answer a long-term need? How can we harness them to understand and transform high-level strategies and power relationships? Can existing knowledge capture the dimensions of these new initiatives? Which are the new research questions to ask?

In this open (fishbowl) dialogue session, participants will share their real life examples of alternative responses to failing top-down governance mechanisms of socio-ecological systems. They will demonstrate how under different types of ongoing crises (biodiversity, financial, political), self-organized local level responses, can steer transitions and trigger adaptation mechanisms that allow for sustainable futures of socio-ecological systems. Participants will show evidence of post-crisis societal responses and transformations across spatial, temporal and administrative scales. We will collectively reflect on the base of video-interventions by invited initiatives and of participants’ experiences. The evidence collected, combined with available knowledge will help identify remaining knowledge gaps and define new research questions.

PIIS-15

INFORMING PLACE-BASED RESEARCH THROUGH GENDER AND FEMINIST APPROACHES TO SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION

Date: 10-Nov-17

Time: 10.30 - 12.00

Chair: Irene Iniesta-Arandia & Federica Ravera

This special session would bring several speakers who are applying feminist approaches in GEC research and explore the state of the art and new paths of research. The space created by the differentiated experiences of gender and feminist researchers applied to GEC research provides an important space for dissemination of empirical research based on intersectional approaches. At the same time, such a space can explore theories, approaches and a diversity of qualitative and quantitative research methods applied. The speakers will be initially invited to converse about their place-based research and then to answer to such questions (and other that will emerge from the interaction with the public):

Edna Wangui (Department of Geography, Ohio University, USA)
Beth Bee (Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment, East Carolina University, USA)
Maria Fernández-Giménez (Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, USA)
Bruno Locatelli (CIRAD/CIFOR Lima, Perú)
Houria Djoudi (CIFOR, Indonesia)

The quick talks will be followed by a Fishbowl dialogue that will allow having an in-depth conversation. The dialogue will be organized around a number of key questions, such as:

Why is it relevant and necessary to address a feminist perspective in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation research of social-ecological systems?
What types of research methodologies have you found to be particularly useful to uncover issues related to a feminist approach upon first entering communities to conduct place-based research in GEC? Why have these methodologies been more useful than other methodologies?
Which avenues should be taken into account and further explored in combining gender/feminist research and adaptation and resilience to GEC towards sustainable stewardship?

Anyone wanting to join the fish bowl and discuss the key questions posed is welcome

PIIS-16

HACKING SUSTAINABLE DIETS

Date: 8-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Juan Rocha, Laurie Beth Clark, Michael Peterson

The purpose of this session is opening a dialogue between experts, chefs and conference participants around the question: what is a sustainable diet?

What is a “sustainable diet” is a multi-layered problem that includes securing minimum standards for health (e.g. reducing malnutrition and obesity), reducing impacts on the environment, while still making profitable and scalable business solutions for farmers and food industry. Although there is a heated debate between different belief systems (e.g. organic, fair trade, minimalistic diets, or cultural preferences), there is no agreement on what constitutes sustainable diet, or what would be good proxies of sustainability when it comes to food production and consumption beyond market instruments and fashion. A hackathon fulfils two purposes: gathering people creativity to solve a problem, but also redefining a problem by discussing it. Discussing the problem transforms our own perspective of it, sheds light on how others interpret it, and collectively develop a shared understanding.

The session will have two different venues. First we will have a deep conversation within the conference program where scientist, artist, and chefs will discuss their takes on how a sustainable diet looks like. It will require a conference room with a panel setting. Second, at the conference dinner we will run a transformation lab. Each person will receive with their dinner a paper table cloth with questions about their perceptions on food and what make it sustainable. Participants will be invited to contribute their perspectives on an online platform and the results will be shared on the closing ceremony. We believe our activity promotes cultural diversity by inviting everyone to the dinner dialogue and opening a channel for sharing thoughts, tips, and recipes for sustainable diets.

Potential experts on our deep conversation include: Elena Bennett, Laura Pereira, Laurie Beth Clark, Michael Peterson, Becky Chapin-Kramer, and a chef to be confirmed. We believe our activity promotes cultural diversity by inviting everyone to the dinner dialogue and opening a channel for sharing thoughts, tips, and recipes for sustainable diets. Everyone is welcome to participate in both the deep conversation and the T-lab. We believe everyone is an expert in their own kitchen. By knowledge sharing perhaps we can get closer to the question: what is a sustainable diet? The artist consortia Spatula&Barcode from University of Wisconsin will help us run the T-lab. Previous experiences by the professors / artist can be found at www.spatulaandbarcode.net

PIIS-19

A board game of Mexico City’s socio-hydrological system to communicate and validate an agent-based model with stakeholders

Date: 10-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 16.30

Chair: Rebecca Shelton & Hallie Eakin

This session will demonstrate a board game designed to help research teams communicate the complexities of dynamic social-hydrological modeling with vulnerable residents in Mexico City. The game is designed to be played by residents who are affected by flooding and scarcity, and simulates their decision-making in response to chronic hydrological stress. For the research team, the game serves to validate the assumptions about agents’ actions and decisions that are represented in an agent based model; for the players, the game can serve as a tool for reflection on decision-processes and the potential costs and benefits of private and collective action to address vulnerability.

First, we will introduce participants to the problem context that inspired the game -- namely, the challenge of both validating our understanding of urban residents’ decision making as well as communicating the complexities of a dynamic socio-hydrological model of risk (entailing the integration of agent-based modeling and biophysical models) that we have developed for Mexico City. Second, after explaining the game’s purpose and features, we will allow session participants to experience the game directly. Participants will then discuss their experience, and the insights they gained on constraints and opportunities for local-level vulnerability reduction from playing the game. Finally, we will provide a brief overview of the contribution of the game to knowledge co-production between researchers and stakeholders based on our experience of implementing the game with residents vulnerable to flooding and scarcity in Mexico City.

We invite researchers who are using complex models to represent socio-ecological systems and would like to learn about how to innovatively communicate these models with and policy and decision makers who are interested in creative methods for validating their

assumptions about stakeholder decision-making regarding risk reduction.

PIIS-20

CROSSING THE BOUNDARIES: STORIES OF A PLACE-BASED APPROACH TO MULTI-ECOSYSTEM GOVERNANCE AT THE LAND-SEA INTERFACE

Date: 9-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Angelina Sanderson Bellamy

This "deep conversation' considers the little made connection between land-use governance and coastal zone management, asking participants, "Why are marine ecosystems rarely part of the land-use policy conversation?" It is established that agriculture, forestry, and urbanisation cause increased marine pollution via runoff through the watershed, so a multi-sectoral approach to governance considering both terrestrial and marine ecosystems should be the norm. The objective of this session is to gather case study evidence from delegates of where absence / presence of sectoral policy integration impacts place-based sustainability for marine environments.

The goal with the case study evidence collected in this session is to identify priorities for developing a set of best practices for achieving a broader integration of sectoral policy. Our discussion will address the problem of agreeing a set of principled priorities to guide decisions about trade-offs between conflicting objectives. Attendees to this session, and those in two other proposed sessions (under the theme of Crossing the Boundaries; one session coordinated by Matias Piaggio/SARAS and the other coordinated by Ariane de Bremond/GLP) will be invited to contribute to a peer-reviewed special issue in the journal "Ecosystems' around the theme of pathways to best practice on multi-ecosystem governance. Contributions will be encouraged based on theoretical work and empirical case studies from around the world. A blog post summarising the session for a public audience will be written for Speak Up for The Blue (http://www.speakupforblue.com/).

For this exercise to be effective, more voices need to be heard from those working on either solely terrestrial, solely marine, or indeed, multi-ecosystem governance. Participants can be academics, NGO workers, industry representatives, or from any other relevant sector. Preferably, they will be of a good mix of genders and will represent every continent. While participants can attend this as a stand-alone session, they may also be attendees of two proposed coordinated sessions under the theme of Crossing the Boundaries (one session coordinated by Matias Piaggio/SARAS and the other coordinated by Ariane de Bremond/GLP).

PIIS-21

FULFILLING THE PROMISE OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICE SCIENCE: LESSONS FROM REAL WORLD PRACTITIONERS

Date: 9-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chair: Elena Bennett, McGill University

In this session, we will facilitate a discussion between ecosystem service (ES) scientists and environmental management practitioners to better understand the challenges associated with ES tools and concepts that are currently available, and to learn how ES science can better meet environmental manager’s needs. The concept of ES has generated interest from governments for its potential to enhance decision-making about the environment. However, the potential of ES frameworks to aid in complex environmental decision-making has not been fully realized. In this session we will examine the issues that have inhibited the progress of ES from a theory to a practical management tool.

Theoretical critiques of ES science are not new; however, little has been written about the practical barriers to ES-based decision-making. To identify these barriers, we have invited ES practitioners, representing diverse institutions and contexts (in Canada, the US and Mexico), to speak about challenges that they have faced using ES as a management tool, along with other insights they have gained from on-the-ground experiences implementing ES science. The panellists will be:

Renée González Montagut, Conservation Director, Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature
Gillian Kerr, Government of Alberta, Ministry of Municipal Affairs
Andrea Mackenzie, General Manager, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority
Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne, McGill University
Becky Chaplin-Kramer, Lead Scientist, Natural Capital Project

We will facilitate a dialogue between ES scientists and practitioners to explore the following questions:

What is the value of ES for decision-makers? What types of decisions, projects and policies can ES science usefully inform?
What approaches and tools, from models to simple indicators, have proven to be most useful for practitioners? What concepts and frameworks have been easiest to work with?
Where is more guidance necessary for ES implementation and on what tools and approaches should scientists focus their efforts in order to support practitioners in the short term?

This session is geared towards ES scientists who are interested in how ES research can better meet the needs of practitioners, and it is also geared towards practitioners who are interested in helping direct ES research towards practical application. We expect participants to engage in a discussion around the value of ES concepts to environmental decision makers; which ES models and concepts are most amenable to practical use; and how can future ES science be directed to best suit the needs of environmental managers.

PIIS-22

DIVERSE EPISTEMOLOGIES FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY – A DEEP CONVERSATION ABOUT HOW DIFFERENT WAYS OF KNOWING THE WORLD CAN MATTER FOR TRANSFORMATION

Date: 9-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: Maria Tengö

We invite to a deep conversation around the role of diverse knowledge systems, in particular systems-oriented, biocultural, and relational ways of understanding the world, to inform local to global sustainability pathways. How may the richness of place-based studies help to identify solutions and leverage points for transformations toward more sustainable pathways, from a diversity of ways of knowing and understanding the world. While multiple epistemologies, including local and indigenous knowledge systems, may contribute to fruitful collaborations at local or regional levels, it is less common that such diversity informs research about global sustainability transformations and governance. We are inspired by a Multiple Evidence Base approach that acknowledges integrity and complementarity across diverse knowledge systems, to contribute different pieces of the sustainability puzzle. We invite participants to reflect on and discuss how to constructively and fairly engage with diverse epistemologies, to inform sustainability pathways and transformation also beyond the local.

We set out to facilitate a deep conversation around the role of diverse knowledge systems, including systems-oriented, biocultural, and relational ways of understanding the world, to inform local to global sustainability pathways. In particular we want to elicit and probe a) what arenas or issues may offer constructive points of convergence between local and regional initiatives and, possibly, global processes, and how they may be created; and b) how epistemological agility, e.g. a capacity to understand and respect a diversity of ways of knowing the world, may contribute the way we may study and engage with transformations toward sustainable trajectories.

A set of speakers will provide short entry points to spur the discussion:

Christo Fabricius, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
Juliana Mercon, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico
Maria Mancilla Garcia, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden
Simon West/Jamila Haider/Vanessa Masterson, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden

We welcome participants with experience from working in a transdisciplinary mode and who are willing to share their reflections and listen with an open mind

PIIS-23

MIXED REALITY, VIRTUAL REALITY, AND AUGMENTED REALITY – THE HOWS AND WHATS ON MERGING SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE WITH IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY

Date: 10-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 16.30

Chair: Maria Schewenius

Mixed Reality (MR) technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) went mainstream during late 2016 and are increasingly used in the field of scientific visualization. What we have seen up until now is only the tip of the iceberg, as the development of MR, and the growing interest in the scientific community is projected to continue at increasing speed. Traditional ways of presenting and visualizing science is thereby being joined by novel communication options that hold new powers to reach existing and new audiences. The proposed session aims to guide a critical assessment of the possibilities with, and the role and responsibility of these novel technologies in research and science communication.

The session will begin with an overview of how the technology scene is changing, using recent examples of how MR has been used in science communication, and a global series of VR hackathons called The Anthronaut Experience. It will continue with a discussion on the potential of making VR and other emerging MR technologies integral parts of research on sustainability science – and possible pitfalls or limitations.

In harnessing the vast and global interest for novel communication technologies, the session aims to discuss a blueprint design manual of their use in sustainability science, and outline possibilities of future collaborative events. It sets out to gather sustainability science researchers, VR filmmakers, representatives from cities and local governments, and organizations specializing in e.g. human rights or environmental protection. The session also invites small to large technology companies with a proven interest in VR, AR, and sustainability, and representatives from the general public, primarily groups that tend to be excluded from decision-making processes.

PIIS-27

WHAT CAN MULTIPLE VALUES BRING TO THE TABLE? EXPERIENCES ACROSS REGIONS OF THE WORLD

Date: 9-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chairs: David González Jiménez

A kaleidoscopic approach to values is relevant for the representation of multiple worldviews, the integration of multiple values of nature and the recognition of conflicts among approaches to nature as well as their policy responses. Thus, within this innovative session we will introduce the IPBES approach to multiple conceptualizations of values, and reflect about the opportunities and obstacles for incorporating the idea in biodiversity and ecosystem services assessments across regions of the world. The discussion will open the floor for contributions of participants to bring their own expertise into the table and take the discussion further allowing the recognition of the relevance of the multiple conceptualizations of values approach in the broader socio-ecological context.

The key objectives will be to introduce participants to the idea of multiple conceptualizations of values as proposed by IPBES, to highlight how the concept of multiple values has been useful across different regions of the world and to reflect on the opportunities and obstacles for incorporating the idea of multiple conceptualizations of values in biodiversity and ecosystem services assessments.

We welcome anybody interested in the idea on multiple worldviews, nature’s benefits to people, multiple conceptualizations of values and valuation or the relationships between values and policy support tools.

PIIS-28

SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSDISCIPLINE IN PRACTICE:

TROPICAL ECOSYSTEM CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION

Date: 9-Nov-17

Time: 15.00 - 17.00

Chair: Evodia Silva-Rivera

Many traditional management practices are associated with ecosystem sucession processes - both the result of a historical co-evolutionary relationship between people's culture (their life projects and 'understanding of living well') and their environment. This session is oriented at the enhancement of studies looking at non Western cultures' capacity to endure socio-ecological transformations as a powerful means to counteract the present planetary crisis.

This session will motivate an analytical dialogue on the value of traditionally managed ecosystems (understood as resilient socio-ecological systems that maintain biodiversity and natural cycles) for conservation and sustainability science. We aim to discuss approaches that aim at bridging scientific knowledge with other forms of knowledge, including a critical stance of conventional science towards a more complex and integrated perspective of reality. During the session we will introduce conceptual cross disciplinary frameworks such as traditional ecological knowledge, participatory research, and productive diversification and will bring forward the fundamental role of traditional and indigenous cultures in conservation and sustainability. We aim to produce a synthesis draft derived from the collective discussion in relation to tropical ecosystem conservation and restoration.

Four speakers will provide short presentations to start the discussions:

Evodia Silva Rivera, Instituto de Investigaciones en Educación
Citlalli López Binnqüist, Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales
Juan Carlos López-Acosta, Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales
Juan Carlos Sandoval-Rivera, Instituto de Investigaciones en Educación.

Preferably, but not exclusively, our session welcomes academics, teachers, and professionals (with no age limit) interested to learn more from Mexican grassroots experiences related to sustainability, agroecosystem conservation and restoration in tropical megadiverse regions; belonging to universities, research centres, and governmental and non-governmental organizations.

II CONFERENCE OF THE PROGRAMME ON ECOSYSTEM CHANGE AND SOCIETY