'Tropical forests to 2050: science challenges for researchers and policy-makers' with Prof Oliver Phillips

Past Event

Date
 26 October 2022, 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Location
 Oxford Martin School & Online
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

Event Recording:

Understanding the dynamics of carbon and biodiversity across the world’s tropical forests and how these change with our changing climate requires global teamwork and a multidisciplinary approach.

But how can researchers and policymakers work together to monitor and develop the forests impact on slowing, or speeding up, the rate of global climate change.

Join Professor Oliver Phillips, Professor of Tropical Ecology at the University of Leeds, as he discusses with Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Professor of Ecosystem Science, the challenges and solutions of greater scientific capacity and vital on-the-ground evidence to understand how forests interact with climate change.

P46697 Oliver Phillips

Professor Oliver Phillips
Chair in Tropical Ecology, University of Leeds

Oliver is Professor of Tropical Ecology in the School of Geography. Oliver’s research focuses on understanding the dynamics of carbon and biodiversity across the world’s tropical forests and how these alter with changing climate. To do this, Oliver leads a team of more than 100 researchers in Leeds, across South America, and elsewhere, involved in the long-term and detailed monitoring of tropical ecosystems.

Oliver leads long-term monitoring in Amazonia that has been tracking forest dynamics, biomass, and biodiversity for 30 years. With colleagues, this work spans 300 sites across Amazonia (the RAINFOR project). They are developing similar approaches elsewhere and support researchers and networks worldwide through ForestPlots.net.

Yadvinder Malhi

Professor Yadvinder Malhi
Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Biodiversity and Society

Yadvinder Malhi is Professor of Ecosystem Science at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Programme Leader of the Ecosystems Group at the Environmental Change Institute and the Jackson Senior Research Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford.

He is a Lead Researcher on the the Oxford Martin Programme on Biodiversity and Society and Director of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, a network of university departments, NGOs and local businesses that seeks to address the major issues facing the future of tropical forests in the 21st century.

He is also a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London and part of their programme on Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment, an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of the Environment and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK.

He leads the Ecosystems Programme of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University, which is composed of an Ecosystems Lab focused on the natural science of tropical forests and global change, and a Forest Governance Group focussed on social science and policy issues around the protection of tropical forests.