This conference will address the threats to biodiversity resulting from the large increase in the production of mineral goods necessary for the energy transition, from fossil sources to renewable sources.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, set an ambitious conservation agenda.

In order to change the current trajectory of biodiversity loss, the coordination between various agents, including industry and governments, is necessary towards understanding and controlling a varied and interactive set of threats to nature.

The lecture will address the role of mining in nature conservation, at the same time an important threat to biodiversity and the activity that produces the materials needed to face other threats, in particular climate change. The challenges of managing biodiversity in mining regions will be presented, illustrating how renewable energy production can exacerbate the mining threats to biodiversity in certain locations.

The event will discuss current ways of mitigating impacts, such as compensation for loss of biodiversity, and how they are unable to offset the losses. These points show the need for

(1) better engagement between biodiversity specialists and the mineral sector

(2) new tools to anticipate the consideration of impacts on biodiversity in decisions about extraction and use of mineral resources.

The event will be live-streamed at http://www.iea.usp.br/aovivo.

Presenter:

Laura Sonter (University of Queensland)

Coordination:

Luis Enrique Sánchez (IEA and USP's Polytechnic School)

Organization:

IEA's Environment and Society Research Group

Clique aqui para a versão em Português

In 2022, IEA's Study Group on Computational Cultures and Humanities will organize eight colloquia on the impact of electronic culture on society, the arts, and the Humanities.

The first activity, to be held on March 23, will address the accelerated development of technology and the advances in science as imposing a debate on how the humanities can continue to form the tripod of knowledge alongside technology and science.

Ideas and practices that were valid until recently may change or disappear, giving rise to new figures or, simply, become extinct.

The main presenter, Nicolas Shumway, is Frances Moody Newman Professor Emeritus from Rice University. He holds a PhD (1976) in Hispanic Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA.) For fourteen years he has lectured at Yale University, where he became a full professor. In 1993 he was named Tomás Rivera Regents Professor of Spanish-American Literature at the University of Texas, Austin (UT.). There, he directed the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) between 1995 and 2007. Late, at Rice, he served as Dean of the School of Humanities from 2010 to 2017. Shumway has held visiting professorships in Brazil, at USP, and in Argentina, at the Universidad de San Andrés and the Universidad Torcuato di Tella. His 1991 book, "The Invention of Argentina," gained international recognition and was reviewed as remarkable by The New York Times. In 1993, Emecé Editores published a Spanish translation of the book in Argentina. A translation in Portuguese was published by Editora da USP in 2009. In 2012, Emecé released Shumway's second book about Argentina, Historia Personal de una Pasión Argentina, which includes an autobiographical essay contextualizing his work in the country as well as a study on how the term "liberalism" has been used in the Argentine political discourse.

Registration:

Free and public event | No registration required
Online event | No attendance certification will be provided
The event will be held in Portuguese and English with no simultaneous translation available | Live transmission at http://www.iea.usp.br/aovivo

Presenter:

Nicolas Shumway (Rice University)

Debaters:

Marcos Buckeridge (USP)

Marcos Cuzziol

The cycle of debates on the Future of Marine-Dependent Societies invites an anthropologist and an economist who investigate socio-ecological changes associated with climate change in coastal communities of India, Africa, and Oceania. As a counterpoint, Brazilian studies will be represented by researchers from the Fisheries Ecosystems Laboratory of USP' Oceanographic Institute (LABPESQ / IO-USP).

The debate aims to discuss transdisciplinary approaches applied in different socio-economic contexts and communities of fishermen that are distinct from the global ocean.

With an emphasis on climate vulnerability, the debaters will share some insightful aspects covered by the multilateral consortium GULLS (Global Understanding and Learning for Local Solutions), as well as new perspectives for mitigation and adaptation agendas.

Shankar Aswani Canela (Rhodes University, South Africa) will present local forms of coastal-marine governance, food security, and livelihoods in a changing climate, as well as indigenous and local knowledge systems in communities of Africa and Oceania. Shyam Salim (Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, India) will discuss climate impacts on resources, vulnerability assessments, and engagement of local actors in his country.

This is the second international event of the cycle, that has been originated from the project The Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Climate Change, Innequalities and Cooperation in Complex Socio-ecological Systems, developed by Professor Mary Gasalla (IO-USP) in 2016 during her participation in IEA's Sabbatical Year Program.

The next themes to be addressed by the cycle are:

• Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Innequalities and the Blue Economy;
• Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Cooperation and SDGs.

This seminar aims to present recent results and perspectives on quantitative modeling of two of the most prominent contemporary scientists that integrate global climate and biogeochemical models with aspects directly related to living resources, and the contributions of the oceans to society.

William Cheung, from the University of British Columbia's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, will explore why advanced studies on the subject are needed in addition to presenting the results of his research. Marion Gehlen, from the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (France), will present perspectives from a biogeochemical scientist's viewpoint.

This will be the first of a series of debates that has been originated from the project The Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Climate Change, Innequalities and Cooperation in Complex Socio-ecological Systems, developed by Professor Maria Gasalla (IO-USP) in 2016 during her participation in IEA's Sabbatical Year Program. It will address subjects from an advanced studies' perspective in order to broaden the academic dialogue with society.

The next themes to be addressed by the cycle are:

• Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Climate Change and Oceans;
• Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Innequalities and the Blue Economy;
• Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Cooperation and SDGs.

Professors Martine Maron and Jonathan Rhodes

The so-called "ecosystem services" represent the set of (both material and abstract) goods and services offered by ecosystems. The quantity, quality and diversity of these services can be influenced by the dynamics of space, called "landscape structures". In order to discuss the relations between these two concepts, the IEA will host the seminar Linking Landscape Structure to Ecosystem Services on April 26, at 9.00 am. There will be a live webcast.

The seminar will feature presentations by professors Martine Maron and Jonathan Rhodes, both from the University of Queensland's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES). It has been organized by IEA's Ecosystem Services Research Group, under the coordination of Jean Paul Walter Metzger, a professor at USP's Institute of Biosciences (IB).

Rhodes will present the paper The role of landscape structure for the provision of ecosystem services, in which he aims to develop a new conceptual framework that explicitly considers the links between landscape fragmentation, supply and service flow for people. According to him, the fragmentation of the landscape can have both positive and negative effects on the flow of ecosystem services. These effects will be analyzed during the seminar through testable hypotheses constructed from Rhodes's conceptual framework.

In the exhibition The many meanings of no net loss in environmental policy, Maron will examine NNL policies and related objectives, and identify three main forms of baseline scenario. In addition, she intends to categorize NNL policies as related to broad policy goals or to responses to specific impacts, and to increase transparency about which of them are actually designed to achieve.

The disruption of a tailings dam in Mariana, in the State of Minas Gerais, on November 5, is the largest environmental disaster ever occurred in Brazil and one of the five largest in world history.

In addition to causing the death of 13 people (there are still eight missing persons), destroying the homes of 250 families in the Mariana subdistricts, and several other social and economic impacts, the mudslide has affected water resources (especially the Doce River, until its mouth in the State of Espírito Santo), and terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

On December 7, at 2 pm, at the seminar The Environmental Damage of Samarco - Impacts and Recovery, five professors of USP, covering various disciplines, will explain the severity of the consequences of the disaster and what needs to be done for the environmental recovery of the affected areas.

The exhibitors and their topics will be:

Ana Paula Fracalanza (EACH and Procam-IEE-USP) - The Impacts on Water Resources

Luis Enrique Sánchez (EP-USP) - The recovery of degraded areas

Marcos Buckeridge (IB-USP) - The Impacts on Ecosystems

Pedro Luiz Cortês (ECA-USP) - The Dynamics of Tragedy

Pedro Jacobi (IEA, FE and Procam-IEE-USP) - The Social Impacts

Moderation will be in charge of Jacobi, who coordinates the IEA's Environment and Society Research Group, organizer of the event.

Photo: Federal Senate