We are pleased to invite you to our first Mindset Public Talk of 2018. This event is in conjunction with The World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur and features two presentations, from Dr Chris Ives (University of Nottingham, UK) and Dr David Tan (United Nations University – International Institute for Global Health). Both speakers will discuss areas of their research, which offer innovative perspectives for moving towards urban sustainability (details below).

This event is one of Mindset’s Public Talks – monthly events that are generally (but as this month, not always) held on the evening of the third Wednesday of each month. These talks are aimed to a general audience including academics, government officers, NGOs, people from the relevant industries, and any person with an interest for environmental issues. We are looking forward to see you in this and future Mindset events.

Please do join us and share this information with others who might be interested.

Mindset Public Talk, Feb 2018

Title: Connecting to Nature & Systems Thinking for a Better City

Guest Speakers: Dr Chris Ives and Dr David Tan

Date & time: Wed 7 Feb 2018, 6-7:30 pm

Venue: University of Nottingham Kuala Lumpur Teaching Centre (KLTC), Level 2, Chulan Tower, No 3 Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur (GPS: 3.149604, 101.716449)

Organizer: Mindset, UNMC Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Studies

RSVP: Wed 31 Jan, Praveena.Chackrapani@nottingham.edu.my

Refreshments will be served after the talk

[To avoid traffic hassle we encourage using public transport. The nearest stations to KLTC are Monorail’s Raja Chulan (11 min walking) and MRT’s Bukit Bintang (13 min)]

About the Speakers and the Talks

Connecting to nature in the city: Current knowledge and new directions for sustainable urbanisation

Being ‘connected to nature’ is increasingly recognised as vital for a good quality of life but increasingly difficult to achieve in the context of rapid urbanisation. In this talk, concepts of human-nature connectedness will be outlined based on insights from diverse fields of scholarship. The challenge of enhancing connections to nature in the new urban era will then explored. Actions for connecting people to nature will be related to the vision of cities presented in the UN’s New Urban Agenda before proposing a framework for how nature can be embedded in pathways towards urban sustainability.

Dr. Chris Ives is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in urban social-ecological systems and the human dimensions of environmental management. He joined the University of Nottingham in 2016 after holding research positions at universities in Australia and Germany. As an Australian, Chris loves the outdoors but is also fascinated by how cities function in different parts of the world. His research has focused on the values urban residents assign to green space, the ethics of conservation policy, the biodiversity of streamside habitats and ways of conceptualising sustainability transformations.

Systems Thinking for Urban Health and Sustainable Development

Health begins in the environments we live and operate in. Cities play a pivotal role, both as the environments that are home to a majority to human beings today, and as engines of development that are shaping the global environment of tomorrow. The relationships that govern the operation of cities are complex, difficult to observe and understand. Systems thinking is a tool for tracing and exploring the feedback loops that govern complex systems. The talk will introduce the SCHEMA project, “Systems Thinking and Place-Based Methods for Healthier Malaysian Cities,” which uses systems thinking for understanding specific problems and for facilitating communication between disciplines and between experts and non-experts to break down information and management silos.

Dr. David Tan is a systems thinking researcher with a background in environmental engineering. He joined United Nations University – International Institute for Global Health in 2016, where he explores the linkages between urban environments and public health and wellbeing. His interests include sustainable housing and transit solutions and figuring out how to get key actors in urban environments to see the impact they have on health.

We are pleased to invite you to our second of November’s Mindset Public Talks – ‘Let’s be positive – a vision for conservation education’, by Pierre de Chabannes. Mr de Chabannes is a scientific advisor for National Geographic, a reporter, photographer, lecturer, and the driving force behind the Photozoo Collection. In this talk, he will share his vision on the potential of zoos for positive education on conservation.

This event is one of Mindset’s Public Talks – monthly events that are generally held on the evening of the third Wednesday of each month. These talks are aimed to a general audience including academics, government officers, NGOs, people from the relevant industries, and any person with an interest for environmental issues. We are looking forward to see you in this and future Mindset events.

Please do join us and share this information with others who might be interested.

Mindset Public Talk, Nov 2017

Title:Let’s be positive – a vision for conservation education

Guest Speaker: Pierre de Chabannes

Date & time: Wed 22 Nov 2017, 6-7:30 pm

Venue: University of Nottingham Kuala Lumpur Teaching Centre (KLTC), Level 2, Chulan Tower, No 3 Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur (GPS: 3.149604, 101.716449)

Organizer: Mindset, UNMC Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Studies

RSVP: Fri 17th Nov, Praveena.Chackrapani@nottingham.edu.my

Refreshments will be served after the talk

Transport from and back to UNMC will be provided for students who register before Fri 17th Nov

[To avoid traffic hassle we encourage using public transport. The nearest stations to KLTC are Monorail’s Raja Chulan (11 min walking) and MRT’s Bukit Bintang (13 min)]

About the Speaker and Talk

A native of Paris, France, Pierre de Chabannes is a scientific advisor for National Geographic Society, reporter, photographer, lecturer and an expert in animal identification and conservation issues around the world. He is also the driving force behind the Photozoo Collection, one of the world’s largest documentary websites on captive species.

Fascinated with the world of zoos and aquariums since he was a child, Pierre has extensively studied not only the taxa in their collections, but the conservation status of the more than 15,000 species presently held in captivity. The Photozoo project seeks to preserve, in photographs and educational documents at least, the world’s biodiversity at this moment in time.

A freelance reporter and photographer since 2007, Pierre has authored articles in both English and French for publications such as Avicultural Magazine (The Avicultural Society), Watchbird (American Federation of Aviculture) and International Zoo News. His first book, a concise encyclopedia of all parrot species in captivity, is also in production.

Delivering a optimistic, yet realistic, message is quite a challenge in today’s world in which we’re facing a massive animal extinction crisis, constant pollution of our planet, wars and political crisis leading to disastrous living conditions for millions of human beings. Yet, optimism is a crucial element of an educational message, especially when it is addressed to zoo visitors who haven’t been taught zoology or nature conservation. Most humans display a natural tendency to step away from negative messages and tend to favour positive emotions.

In this talk, Pierre shares with the audience his opinion on the good that can arise from a positive education, this being especially true in a zoo setting. Hop on with Pierre on a world tour of education messages and practices applied by zoos and understand how efficient a positive education message can be ! Educating isn’t enough anymore… today, people want to feel as heroes.

We are pleased to invite you to November’s Mindset Public Talk – Maintaining Peopled Forests, by Dr Joe Fragoso, from the California Academy of Science; with a special response by Kamal Solhaimi Fadzil, from the University of Malaya. In this talk, Dr Fragoso will present his work on self-governance by forest people in the Amazon and its implications for biodiversity, forest cover, and livelihoods. Kamal will add a local perspective to peopled forests in Malaysia. Please note that this talk will be on a Tuesday (not the usual day for our public events).

This event is one of Mindset’s Public Talks – monthly events that are generally held on the evening of the third Wednesday of each month. These talks are aimed to a general audience including academics, government officers, NGOs, people from the relevant industries, and any person with an interest for environmental issues. We are looking forward to see you in this and future Mindset events.

Please do join us and share this information with others who might be interested.

Mindset Public Talk, Nov 2017

Title: Maintaining Peopled Forests
Guest Speaker: Dr Joe Fragoso, with a special response by Kamal Solhaimi Fadzil
Date & time: Tue 7 Nov 2017, 6-7:30 pm
Venue: University of Nottingham Kuala Lumpur Teaching Centre (KLTC), Level 2, Chulan Tower, No 3 Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur (GPS: 3.149604, 101.716449)
Organizer: Mindset, UNMC Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Studies
RSVP: Tue 18th Sep, Praveena.Chackrapani@nottingham.edu.my

Refreshments will be served after the talkTransport from and back to UNMC will be provided for students who register before Mon 30th Oct
[To avoid traffic hassle we encourage using public transport. The nearest stations to KLTC are Monorail’s Raja Chulan (11 min walking) and MRT’s Bukit Bintang (13 min)]

About the Talk

Millions of people live in forests worldwide including in those considered isolated and pristine. In the Amazon region, indigenous and other forest people also inhabit the Earth’s largest tropical rainforest. This area is of great global conservation and climatological importance because it is more extensive that what occurs in parks and other strictly protected areas. How these forests and their biodiversity will continue into the future is of great concern. Our research including simulation modeling indicates that self-governance by forest people can lead to sustainability in biodiversity, forest cover and livelihoods. Computer simulation modeling projecting 200 years into the future shows how the system can be broken and become unstable. Breaks and instability occurs when land is developed outside areas inhabited by forest people, when traditional indigenous religious belief systems are extinguished by newly introduced religions and when national policies do not consider local contexts.

About the Speakers

José Manuel Vieira Fragoso (PhD, University of Florida) is a Research Associate at the California Academy of Sciences, USA and at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA). He has also been a Visiting Scholar, Senior Scientist or Lecturer at Stanford University (USA) from 2007 to 2017. His work addresses the role of biodiversity in carbon storage, the influence of culture on resource use, the sustainability of human-occupied tropical forests in an increasingly globalized world in general and the socio-ecological sustainability of rural livelihoods in the Amazon in particular. You can view Dr. Fragoso discussing his research on biodiversity in the Amazon at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upmzEzuF_ls and learn more about his work https://fragosolab.wordpress.com/

Kamal Solhaimi Fadzil is a lecturer with the Department of Anthropology and sociology, University of Malaya. He has an MA in Social Anthropology of Development and his area of interest is in social inequality, participatory development and social inclusivity. Over the last eighteen years, Kamal has worked on several research projects, including studying the impact of Governance in Protected Areas (PAs) on the lives of Indigenous Peoples living within or close to PAs. His research work often extends into advocacy.

We are pleased to announce that in September we will have a Mindset Public Talk – Climate change, range shifts, and the global distribution of resilience, by Dr Lesley Lancaster, Associate Professor at the University of Aberdeen, UK. In this talk, Dr Lancaster will discuss how climate-related shifts in species range shape global patterns of biodiversity, and the its implications in the context of current environmental change. More details below and in the attached flyer.

This event is one of Mindset’s Public Talks – monthly events that are generally held on the evening of the third Wednesday of each month. These talks are aimed to a general audience including academics, government officers, NGOs, people from the relevant industries, and any person with an interest for environmental issues. We are looking forward to see you in this and future Mindset events.

Please do join us and share this information with others who might be interested.

Mindset Public Talk, Sep 2017

Title: Climate change, range shifts, and the global distribution of resilience
Guest Speaker: Dr Lesley Lancaster
Date & time: Wed 20 Sep 2017, 6-7:30 pm
Venue: University of Nottingham Kuala Lumpur Teaching Centre (KLTC), Level 2, Chulan Tower, No 3 Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur (GPS: 3.149604, 101.716449)
Organizer: Mindset, UNMC Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Studies
RSVP: Tue 18th Sep, Praveena.Chackrapani@nottingham.edu.my

Refreshments will be served after the talk Transport from and back to UNMC will be provided for students who register before Mon 18th Sep

[To avoid traffic hassle we encourage using public transport. The nearest stations to KLTC are Monorail’s Raja Chulan (11 min walking) and MRT’s Bukit Bintang (13 min)]

About the Talk

Under periods of climatic warming, many species shift their geographic ranges to higher latitudes, as poleward habitats just beyond their ancestral range become newly suitable. Widespread, net movements of a wide range of species in a poleward direction have occurred under both post-glacial colonisation events (within the past 10,000 years) and more rapidly and recently in response to contemporary climate change. However, the consequences of these range shifts for the global patterns of species or ecosystem resilience to environmental stressors has often been under appreciated. In this presentation I will discuss the processes by which climate-mediated range shifts shape global patterns of biodiversity and resilience at different latitudes. The results have wide-ranging implications for predicting how species and ecosystems at different latitudes may respond to further environmental change.

About the Speaker

Dr. Lesley Lancaster is a macroecologist and evolutionary biologist broadly interested in spatial ecology and evolutionary processes during periods of environmental instability. She completed a PhD at the University of California Santa Cruz, studying social evolution in lizards, a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara, California, where she studied plant diversification in a Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot, and a research fellowship at Lund University in Sweden, where she investigated range shifts and their consequences for thermal adaptation, using damselflies as a model system. She is now an Associate Professor at the University of Aberdeen, where she conducts research on the biology of climate change across a wide range on insect and plant study systems. You can find her on twitter at @Lancaster_LT.

On Friday 31st of March we have a Mindset Special Event with Professor William F. Laurance talking about ‘Optimizing Infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific Region’.

Bill Laurance is a Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University (Australia), where he is the Director of the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science (CTESS). Bill is also Director of ALERT – a scientific organization that advances environmental sustainability and reaches around 500,000 informed readers each week. Bill is one of the most prolific and cited authors in conservation science. In this talk, he will emphasize the need to maximize the social and economic benefits of new infrastructure – particularly roads – while minimizing their environmental costs. More details below.

Please note that this is a special event and that will take place on Friday (rather than the usual Wednesdays). Venue and time will be the usual. Mindset’s Public Talks are aimed to a general audience including academics, government officers, NGOs, people from the relevant industries, and any person with an interest for environmental issues. We are looking forward to see you in this and future Mindset events.

Please do join us and share this information with others who might be interested.

Mindset Special Event, March 2017

Title: Optimizing Infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific Region
Guest Speaker: Prof William F. Laurance
Date & time: Fri 31 Mar 2017, 6-7:30 pm
Venue: University of Nottingham Kuala Lumpur Teaching Centre (KLTC), Level 2, Chulan Tower, No 3 Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur (GPS: 3.149604, 101.716449)
Organizer: Mindset, UNMC Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Studies
RSVP: Tue 24th Mar, Praveena.Chackrapani@nottingham.edu.my
Refreshments will be served after the talkTransport from and back to UNMC will be provided for students who register before Tue 24th Mar
[To avoid traffic hassle we encourage using public transport. The nearest stations to KLTC are Monorail’s Raja Chulan (11 min walking) and Bukit Bintang (13 min)]

About the Talk

Developing nations need better roads and transportation infrastructure to create economic opportunities and social development. However, if inadequately planned and constructed, roads can create an array of economic, social, environmental and political problems.  Effectively designing and prioritizing roads is essential because at least 25 million kilometers of new roads are expected by 2050—enough to encircle the Earth more than 600 times. About 90% of these new roads will be constructed in developing nations that sustain exceptional biodiversity and ecosystem services. I will highlight ongoing efforts to maximize the social and economic benefits of new roads and transportation infrastructure while minimizing their environmental costs and socio-political and economic risks, focusing on the Asia-Pacific nations of Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

About the Speaker

William Laurance is a Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.  He joined JCU in 2009 after having spent 14 years as a Senior Staff Scientist with the Smithsonian Institution, based in Brazil and Panama. Professor Laurance also holds the Prince Bernhard Chair in International Nature Conservation at Utrecht University, Netherlands, and is a research associate at the Smithsonian and Harvard University. At James Cook University, Laurance is director of the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science, an active interdisciplinary research group with about one hundred investigators working in more than 40 tropical nations.  He also founded and directs ALERT—the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers—a scientific organization that advances environmental sustainability and reaches around 500,000 informed readers worldwide each week.

#mindset #infrastructure