Two proposals headed by the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes leadership were announced as grant finalists for ASU Women and Philanthropy, an organization comprised of women committed to becoming advocates and philanthropic supporters of the university. The proposal presentations took place at the Musical Instrument Museum on Feb. 23.

Designing a public engagement strategy to support the establishment of an effective and equitable US National Biodiversity Strategy was led by Center for Biodiversity Outcomes founding director Leah Gerber, in conjunction with the center program leads. This proposal focuses on how we can more effectively tackle the biodiversity crisis in the U.S. through an inclusive community-led approach leading up to developing a stakeholder engagement strategy for an NBS in the US.

GirlsConserve: Engaging girls in STEM careers using a culturally relevant One Health approach was led by the center's assistant director Gwen Iacona, in collaboration with the ASU Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology (CGEST). GirlsConserve centers around the development of a culturally responsive curriculum for a high school summer camp and mentoring program, focusing on engaging girls in STEM and conservation by following the highly successful model of CGEST’s preexisting program CompuGirls.

A very important book by Nadia El-Hage Scialabba has just published. Nadia is one of our Senior Fellows at the Swette Center and she lists the Swette Center as her primary affiliation on the book jacket! What an honor to have the Swette Center so acknowledged and to have Nadia working with us. Read her blog below to learn more.

- Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director.

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The business sector's premier annual sustainablility conference, GreenBiz 2022, returned to the Valley of the Sun in Scottsdale this February. The ASU Center of Biodiversity Ooutcome’s founding director, Leah Gerber, was invited to sit on a panel titled "Teaming Up To Tackle Plastic Waste: How Cross-Industry Partnerships Can Ignite Long-Lasting Change", which also included Chairman of SC Johnson, Fisk Johnson, and Senior Director of Facilities for the Milwaukee Brewers, Mike Brockman. Moderated by Chris Coulter, CEO of GlobeScan, the panel focused on addressing plastic waste and the disrupting impact it has on our ecosystems.

In bringing the panel together, GreenBiz highlighted the importance of forming partnerships to tackle plastic waste through innovating solutions to positively impact generations to come. It also addressed how the sports industry is working with companies to adapt to the waste crisis and incorporate various recycling models. GreenBiz is centered around bringing together business, technology, and sustainability with the goal of a clean economy. More than a thousand sustainability leaders were registered for the GreenBiz yearly forum.

Gerber spoke about the mission of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. She was able to share her knowledge on how businesses can explore opportunities within universities to solve sustainability crises. Plastic waste can threaten the survival of key species and pollute important ecosystems and habitats to further negative impacts on these species. Gerber elaborated on how crucial finding solutions to the plastics crisis is about biodiversity conservation.

CBO conducts research, such as finding regions that are most at risk and pinpointing where the most impactful reduction of plastics could be. They also partner with government, corporate and corporate-facing institutions solutions to provide solutions that can help lower the plastic footprint.

In cultivating partnerships between academia and larger corporations, specific solutions can be found to address the plastics crisis one step at a time.

Discussions about infrastructure are often centered on the opinions and prevailing ideas within engineering, but other disciplines have valuable insights on what infrastructure is and what it can be. In this first installment of the 2021 Infrastructure and the Anthropocene series, Professor Mikhail Chester of Arizona State University (ASU) interviews his ASU colleague, Professor Chuck Redman, who looks at infrastructure from a more anthropological and social sciences perspective. Topics discussed include whether to think of infrastructure as permanent or impermanent, the ways existing infrastructure shapes future path dependencies, and inserting values into the pursuit of resilience.

Infrastructure Misfits (un)Society: http://www.infrastructurecomplexity.org/

Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering | Arizona State University: https://metis.asu.edu/

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If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.URExSRN.net.

By: Deborah Sadler, ASU Food Systems graduate student.

In December of 2021, the new cohort of ASU graduate students in the Sustainable Food Systems  program spent a morning visiting and touring Kerr Family Farms in the West Valley area of  Maricopa County, Arizona. Farmer Wes Kerr explained the history of the family farm, daily logistics on the farm, and his passion for dairy farming. 

Wes Kerr’s great-grandfather first started dairy farming in 1927, and moved his operation to  Arizona in 1940. Their current facility was built in 1990 and remodeled in 2014 to accommodate  milking 40 cows at a time. Kerr Family Farms milks around 1,150 cows a day, for around 75,000  pounds per day of milk. While Kerr Family Farms is a big dairy on the national scale, the farm is  considered small by Arizona standards, which has a small number of dairies, most very large. However, Wes thinks that the focus should not be on the size of the farms, but rather on their  management practices. He says that “farms can be well-managed or poorly-managed at all  sizes.”  

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By: Wazenn Nithesh, ASU Food Systems graduate student. 

Water security is a major – and often growing – challenge for many countries today. The magnitude of impact is profound as water scarcity drives the bottom line for food sovereignty and food security. According to the World Bank, feeding 9 billion people by 2050 will require a 60% increase in agricultural production, which accounts for approximately 70% of all freshwater withdrawals globally. 

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In this series, we’re meeting with Swette Center team members to explore their background in food systems, what they are currently working on, and their vision of food systems transformation. 

Read on for an interview with Elora Bevacqua, Student Worker.

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By: Sharla Strong, ASU Food Systems graduate student. 

As sustainability and food systems students, it is inspiring to witness successful environmental projects and a privilege to learn from indigenous people. Over Fall term, our class of graduate students with the ASU Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems had been learning about managing natural resources. Now we were on a Food and Farm Tour of Arizona, visiting different types of farms, ranches, and orchards while learning about different aspects of our food system.

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In this series, we’re meeting with Swette Center team members to explore their background in food systems, what they are currently working on, and their vision of food systems transformation. 

Read on for an interview with Estève Giraud, PhD student.

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Faculty and researchers from the ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, teaming with partners from the University of Hawaii, recently published a paper based on their survey of 29 sunked warships around the Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Until these explorations, it was unknown if the hulls of the ships would sustain the development of biodiversity habitats based on ship size and hull material, location relative to natural reef, time since sinking, ocean currents and water depth. According to this study's findings, the team identified more than 9,100 types of corals that represented around 70 percent of the corals found in the natural reefs in the area. The team determined that ship length, but not water depth, positively correlated with relative abundance and richness at the genus level, meaning that very large wrecks can serve as havens for reef-building corals with a broad genetic diversity. Read more.

By: Michael Ryan, ASU Food Systems graduate student.

It’s not by accident that the history of Kuechel Farms, a large citrus grower in Yuma, Arizona begins in a town called Orange. His family is largely responsible for creating the ubiquitous orange groves that sprawled across the town and county that would later bear that fruit’s name. The lessons he learned from the rise and fall of his family farm in Orange, California may be the very thing that saves his current citrus farm in Yuma, Arizona. 

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The Conservation Solutions Lab (CSL) participated in the Integrative Conservation Conference (ICC), held from February 3-5 and hosted by the University of Georgia. The conference centered around decolonizing conservation research and called for racial and environmental justice. With over 50 presentations, workshops, a discussion, and a charette addressing socio-environmental issues, the aim was to promote productive conservation and innovate progression towards adaptive and transformative conservation design and practice. The CSL emphasizes community engagement in conservation and has introduced a sub-thematic focus area that includes Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Knowledge, and co-management.

CBO’s Program Lead for Actionable Science, Candice Carr Kelman, presented a talk on how scientists engage with communities to promote workable science. Her talk, Levels of engagement: Toward co-production in conservation science, synthesizes interviews with 71 conservation scientists and professionals who partook in one of three fellowship programs centering around leadership and the production of actionable conservation work.

16 practices found were used by these professionals to produce more actionable science. These practices were categorized into 3 areas: motivations, strategies, and tactics. Further, Kelman and team were able to address 5 approaches to actionable science in conservation, which were placed in a hierarchy based upon the complexity of engagement, the potential to support actionable science, and proximity to ideal co-production with knowledge users.

By: Stephanie Lip, ASU Food Systems graduate student.

During our December immersive, we had the pleasure of touring and participating in the farm-to-school and “edible education” program called Garfield’s Garden on the Corner. Led and managed by the Mollen Foundation, we experienced the collaborative efforts between the Foundation and Garfield Elementary School. We met with Paige Mollen, co-founder of the Mollen Foundation, and Katie Poirier, Executive Director of the Mollen Foundation – both are alumni of ASU’s Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership Graduate Program. We also met with Maya Dailey, Garden Site Manager, Alex Layshock, Garden Specialist, and Jessie Hess, Kitchen Classroom Specialist. I was particularly excited to get a glimpse of Garfield’s Garden on the Corner because a partnership with a program like this is my hope as a school food service director.   

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By Danyelle Kawamura, GFL Communications Intern

“We believe that every activist has a story to tell and every story has a solution to give, and every solution has a life to change…We also believe that the climate movement doesn’t have just one face or two faces or three faces.” – Vanessa Nakate

The virtual event, Inclusive Voices for Climate Solutions held on January 25, 2022 was hosted by Vital Voices and moderated by Tazreen Hussain, Vital Voices Director of Leadership and Social Impact. The event highlighted perspectives from young female leaders working both within the climate space and on the frontlines of climate activism. Inclusive Voices for Climate Solutions explored ways in which we can ensure climate change solutions are both informed by and uplifting the voices of those who are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. 

Vanessa Nakate shared her perspectives at the event. Vanessa is an inspirational Ugandan climate activist, founder of the Rise Up Climate Movement and leader of the global network chapter, First Fridays For Future climate activists in Uganda. In 2020, she was named a UN Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals and was listed as one of BBC’s 100 inspirational and influential women of the year. In 2021, Vanessa was further  honored with the Diane Von Furstenberg (DVF) Next Generation Award for climate change activism due to her work such as leading a campaign to save the Congo rainforests in the face of massive deforestation. Currently, Vanessa is working on the Vash Green Schools Project that focuses on the installation of solar panels and eco-friendly cookstoves in the rural schools of Uganda with the help of local communities and teachers. 

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim also shared her perspectives at the virtual event. Hindou is a Chadian Environmental Activist, geographer, and advocate for greater inclusion of indigenous people and their knowledge in the movement to fight the effects of climate change. She recently received the 2019 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award, and was appointed as a UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. Hindou was also named one of the 15 Women Championing Actions on Climate Change by Times Magazine in 2019. Given her Indigenous background, she is currently working on a project to give African women documented land titles to promote agro-ecology based on traditional and Indigenous knowledge. Hindou is also working on a project to create 2D Participatory Mapping. She aims to keep the traditional African languages in their mappings to help translate the knowledge from one generation to the next. Hindou states that this is not her job, but it is her life. She was born an activist and it is the reality of her community and her duty as an Indigenous person. 

“It’s really mind blowing how you can’t have climate justice without racial justice because many communities, many people who are on the frontline of the climate crisis…you find that they are black communities or people of color not just on the African continent.” – Vanessa Nakate

In 2020 the Associated Press (AP) published a photo at Davos of four female activists. This photo included Greta Thunberg, Isabelle Axelsson, Luisa Neubauer, Loukina Tille, and Vanessa Nakate. The activist cropped from the photo was Vanessa. This portrayed a clear visual representation of the experience of people of color and those of the global South being left out of climate conversations. Despite AP’s apology, Vanessa has shared her frustrations as it was the first time she felt or experienced something close to what she would call racism and made the connection to the intersection of racial and climate justice. The ugly truth is that, despite the African continent being on the front-lines of the climate crisis, they are not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. The issue itself was addressed in depth in Vanessa’s book A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis which was published in November of 2021. 

Similarly, Hindou speaks on the various ways women are marginalized. She spoke on the constant battle to get a seat at both international conferences and around decision-making tables. Hindou shared that it is important to attend events as a team of Indigenous peoples to enforce the feeling of being a community as well as being able to support and back whoever is speaking. Hindou also states that it is a constant fight to be present for climate negotiations.Very few women are seen in negotiator roles, let alone Indigenous women.

Both Vanessa and Hindou stated that it is their vision that keeps them in activism. The feel inspired witnessing women becoming included at decision-making tables, even if they wish there were more, especially more indigenous women. They are both driven, it is for the benefit of future generations, to continue to demand climate justice and foster relationships to ensure their voices are heard. We all have a role to play in supporting activists like Vanessa and Hinou to fulfill SDG5 and achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls in this fight for climate justice. 

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals, has elected two outstanding faculty from the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory to the newest class of AAAS Fellows, among the most distinct honors within the scientific community. Additionally, Sara Brownell, who has an appointment with the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, also was elected.

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In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with James (Jim) Elser, Director of the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance.

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By John Gifford, ASU Food Systems graduate student.

Increasingly, ranching and conservation are viewed as mutually exclusive practices. One is centered on resource consumption while the other advocates for the protection of wildlife, wild lands, and natural habitats. As wild species worldwide continue to lose vital habitat to suburban and exurban development, sprawl, and agriculture, the relationship between ranching and conservation grows more complicated. Ranchers claim the right to utilize public lands—even lands that are deemed “critical” in the effort to save wildlife—citing grazing agreements that go back decades and generations, while environmentalists argue that cattle have no place in arid regions like the American Southwest. Their rationale? Cattle destroy vital wildlife habitat. And as the number of imperiled species grows, more of our public lands are designated as critical habitat in the effort to save them from extinction. Of course, this deepens the rift between ranching and conservation. One wonders: can the two coexist? Can economically viable ranching occur on lands simultaneously managed for natural-resources conservation? 

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By Ami Freeberg, ASU Food Systems graduate student. 

On December 7, the Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership students visited Duncan Family Farms during a week-long immersive exploring farms, ranches, food processors, and gardens around Arizona. 

If you buy organic salad mixes from the grocery store, chances are good that you have eaten greens grown by Duncan Family Farms. As one of the leading certified organic farms in the country, Duncan Family Farms has expanded from their headquarters in Goodyear, Arizona to grow in California, Oregon, and New York to ensure a year-round supply of greens. However, they didn’t start as a multi-region salad green farm. Arnott Duncan is a 4th generation Arizona farmer with roots in the region’s standard commodity crops of cotton and alfalfa. In 1985, he left his family’s farm to grow on his own, starting off with a few hundred acres of row crops. By 1992, Arnott and his wife Kathleen wanted to expand their impact through education so they turned part of their farm into a destination for students to learn about agriculture and rural life, hosting 40,000 kids each year. 

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By Jillian Dy, ASU Food Systems graduate student. 

Five Days. Eighteen students hailing from thirteen states. Fifteen sites throughout central Arizona. 

The ASU Farm Immersive was a journey through the desert to meet some of the innovative and hardworking people who are growing and processing our food, conserving our natural resources, and managing land in Arizona. Our visits included a fourth generation 1,100 cow dairy, a multi-region Certified Organic vegetable operation, a Native farm growing olives, citrus, and alfalfa, an urban community farm incubator, a 72,000 acre ranch managing a mix of private and public land, and a thriving elementary school garden. 

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By Jane Coghlan, Swette Center Student Worker.

Can you envision the value and versatility of a food that can grow in any climate, is highly nutritious, requires low water input, can self-fertilize, and has a long shelf-life? These are the prominent advantages of an ancient food called pulses. Pulses are among the first plants to be domesticated by humans for sustenance, in turn making them a fundamental ingredient in recipes across old and new cultures in every continent (FAO, 2016, pg. 12-13). The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has designated today, February 10, as World Pulses Day to celebrate the extensive benefits of this resilient food. 

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