Richard A. Matthew (BA McGill; PhD Princeton) is Associate Dean for Research and International Programs and Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of California at Irvine. He is also the inaugural Director of the Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation (http://blumcenter.uci.edu/); a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development; a member of the United Nations Expert Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding; a member of International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Commission on Environment, Economic and Social Policy and co-chair of its Task Force on Conservation, Migration and Conflict; and Vice-President of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (https://environmentalpeacebuilding.org).

 

His research explores challenges at the intersection of three sets of variables: (1) nature loss and climate change; (2) poverty and inequality; and (3) disaster, displacement and violent conflict. His current research focuses on (a) environmental peacebuilding, (b) environmental change and migration, (c) climate change and planetary health and (d) the co-development of visualization tools using big data and local knowledge to provide practical hazard risk management support to communities that are highly vulnerable to flood and other extreme events.

 

Over the past twenty-five years, he has done extensive fieldwork in conflict and disaster zones in Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Eswatini, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Paraguay, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. He served on UN humanitarian and peacebuilding missions in DRC, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. He has given three TEDx talks and been a featured storyteller on The Moth twice. He has recently participated in the World Bank’s KNOMAD project, as well as the development of several whitepapers, including an IOM-led effort on environmental peacebuilding and another related to the Ecological Threat Register. He has over 200 publications (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RBU0xkYAAAAJ&hl=en).

Elaine (Lan Yin) Hsiao is an Assistant Professor in the School of Peace and Conflict Studies with a focus in environmental peacebuilding and international development. She is a critical socio-legal scholar and political ecologist, integrating peace and conflict studies with transboundary conservation and protected areas, Indigenous and community governance, human rights and rights of nature, and development alternatives. Much of her work seeks to address conflicts in conservation (e.g., human-protected area conflicts, human-wildlife conflicts), conservation in places of conflict (i.e., conflict-sensitive and conflict-resilient conservation), and conflict resolution through conservation (environmental peacebuilding). Prior to joining KSU SPCS, Dr. Hsiao was a Global Challenges Fellow at the Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) and Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Rwanda’s Center of Excellence on Biodiversity and Natural Resources (UR CoEB), where she explored the disruption and revitalization of ICCAs (areas and territories conserved by Indigenous Peoples and local communities) in Rwanda, and the concept of ecological peace, evolving peace theory for inter-species or more-than-human relations. She led the IUCN WCPA Young Professionals Network from 2012-2016, developed and led a peace park learning expedition in Parque Internacional La Amistad (2011), held a Fulbright grant in Uganda (2010-2011) and co-produced a documentary film (“Transcending Boundaries”), worked to establish a peace park on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua while at the UN University for Peace, and served the Permanent Mission for the Union of Comoros at the UN.

Co-Chair, Task Force on Migration, Environmental Change and Conflict

Galeo Saintz is an independent conservation, trails and environmental peace practitioner and consultant. He is founder and co-founder of multiple conservation and trails related initiatives in his home country of South Africa, and is the Founding Chair of the World Trails Network based in Geneva, Switzerland. His MSc focused on conservation corridors and the assessment of ecological integrity. His on-going research interests include the confluence between nature and peace, co-existence and conservation, and funding strategies for conservation, biodiversity finance and finally, how trails and conservation intersect. Highlight achievements include mobilising and leading the formation of a global association for trails supporting 8 International Task Teams working for the betterment of trails in all regions of the world. Co-Chair of the IUCN CEESP Theme on Environment and Peace from 2016 - 2022, and Co-Chair of the CEESP Task Force on Migration, Environmental Change and Conflict. Co-founder and expedition co-leader for the Wolf OR-7 Expedition to raise awareness for wolf conservation in the USA, and the Rhino Reality Campaign in South Africa. Current projects include the development of an Ecological Peace Index in collaboration with various institutional partners.

, full_html