How do we negotiate claims over contested environments based on asymmetric power relations?
My decision to pursue a minor in Environmental Sciences along with a Specialist in International Development Studies has given me the opportunity to explore an array of environmental movements in Canada and aboard. In understanding both the changing physical and social aspects that characterize disputes over natural resources, I have come to grasp the difficulty of achieving conservation goals, especially in the context of climate change policies.
To enrich my knowledge of ongoing environmental issues within the forestry sector, I am grateful to be interning with RECOFTC - The Centre for People and Forests in Bangkok, Thailand. This organization’s main mission is to improve the capacity for local people in the Asia-Pacific region to acquire stronger rights and fairer benefits to build sustainable forest landscapes.
Starting September 2016, I will be embarking on my ten months internship to work under RECOFTC’s Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Unit to carry out administrative and research tasks such as conducting impact assessments on training participants. My research interests for my thesis include:
- Participatory environmental monitoring
- Objectivity of environmental knowledge
- Climate change policy
- Aboriginal activism
- Forest conflicts
- Rural and urban livelihoods