Week 10 Overview

Welcome to the final section of the course. After reading and thinking about the Food-Energy-Water Nexus, we will now circle back to look at some ideas from the beginning of the course in more detail. At the start of the course, we read about global environmental change and the planetary boundaries. Over the coming weeks, we will look at three of the key earth systems for which we read about in more detail: Biodiversity loss, land use change, and climate change. This week, we will examine biodiversity. We will examine what biodiversity is, why it is important, and some of the current threats to biodiversity. The reading will examine one way humans have tried to protect biodiversity: parks. We will also read about how indigenous people around the world protect a large about of the remaining intact ecosystems. You should by now be getting used to Human - Environment Geography approaches to these issues and be able to guess at what these readings might say about, for example, justice. Finally, the case study presented in this week’s film, will examine how attempts to protect biodiversity can impact the economy of indigenous people.

Consider these questions as you go through the material for this week as well as when completing your assignment:

• What are the main drivers of biodiversity loss?
• Who is responsible for biodiversity conservation? What are the reasons we should protect biodiversity?
• Do the narratives and discourses you see in the media, and even academic publications, line up with the drivers of biodiversity loss? Why / why not?
• What are the social, economic and justice implications of different strategies to protect biodiversity (such as parks)?

Week 10 Checklist

Note: Please refer to the Calendar in Canvas for specific time frames and due dates.