School Notes: School of the Environment
May/June 2011

Fellowships assist international students

A fellowship program developed through the Tropical Resources Institute will support the education and training of students from underdeveloped countries at the environment school. The Andrew Sabin International Environmental Fellowship will provide up to $30,000 in support for each of six master’s students who begin their study at F&ES during the academic years 2010–11 or 2011–12. The scholarships encourage recipients to return to their home region or country after graduation to work in the field of conservation and development.

The Sabin Fellowship will provide up to $20,000 in support for tuition for the second year of master's study and a $10,000 post-graduation award for professional development. The recipients will be eligible for the post-graduation award once they have secured employment in a developing country and have completed 12 months of work within 24 months of their graduation date. The recipient must work for a governmental or nongovernmental organization or private firm engaged in conservation and development work.

Report says deforestation efforts exclude indigenous peoples

Efforts to prevent deforestation are inadequate because they don’t protect the interests of people who depend on forests, according to the report "Embracing Complexity: Meeting the Challenges of International Forest Governance," released in January by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations. In the report, 60 experts in political science, policy studies, law, and international relations criticized REDD+, the successor to REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), because it values forests more for storage of carbon dioxide than for the improvement of forest conditions and livelihoods. That emphasis, they say, will lead to the further exclusion of indigenous peoples from their forests and the criminalization of their traditional livelihoods. The report calls for a new framework called "Forests+," which would include indigenous peoples in a dialogue on forest governance. "The goal of Forests+ is to solve problems by focusing on the many ways people use forests and by including them in a broad group of stakeholders and institutions inside and outside of forests," said Benjamin Cashore, professor of environmental governance and political science at the environment school, and a coauthor of the report.

Panel established to protect wildlife habitats

A science panel comprising a dozen leaders drawn from government policy, conservation science, and academia has been established to develop the Yale Mapping Framework for Wildlife Conservation and Climate Adaptation, which will assess the effectiveness of policy decisions related to wildlife habitat conservation in an era of changing climate and land use. The Yale Framework, led by Os Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology, is supported by grants from the Doris Duke, Kresge, and Wilburforce foundations.