CTAHR NEWS

Sustainability and Fire

  • 22 August 2018
  • Author: Frederika Bain
  • Number of views: 5074
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Sustainability and Fire

For Fall 2018 the UH Manoa Institute of Sustainability and Resilience (ISR) is hosting an interdepartmental seminar co-sponsored by Sea Grant, CTAHR, UHERO, and the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center, titled Workshop in Energy and Environmental Research (WEER), which the organizers hope will facilitate interaction among students, faculty, and practitioners. The theme for the semester is Climate Change Adaptation. There’s an exciting set of speakers lined up for the semester, so be sure to come for lunch and the seminar every Monday (except holidays), starting next week. It will be from 12 to 1:20 p.m. (the speaker will start promptly at 12:15 p.m.) in the iLab (Building 37). This coming Monday, August 27, the first speaker will be Clay Trauernicht (NREM), who will discuss wildfire ecology in a presentation entitled “Wildland Fire and the Shape of Pacific Island Landscapes.” As Clay explains in his abstract, “Fire has affected the same proportion of Hawaii state land area in 2018 as the state of California, with more than 30,000 acres burning this past month alone. Wildland fire poses a clear threat to people and natural resources on Pacific Islands, especially given our limited land area, connectedness of terrestrial and marine resources, and the sensitivity of native ecosystems to fire disturbance. But fire also provides a signal for us to understand how human activities, vegetation, and climate align, change, and interact over time to shape both landscapes and policy in the Pacific. This presentation will cover the basics of wildland fire science and provide some examples of how fire reveals the vulnerability of island landscapes to acute disturbance while also promoting community and government collaboration in the context of changing land use and climate variability.” Feel free to advertise the seminar series to those who may be interested, and be sure to RSVP for lunch by Friday, August 24, at this UHERO link.

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