Prof. Robert Fletcher (WUR) will provide a keynote on the Conservation Basic Income and conviviality, and workshops are offered by Jane Tynan & Emma Huffman on sustainable fashion, by Dries Daems on connectivity and fragmentation in human societies, by Jorge Sousa and colleagues on the Regenerative Business Leaders Initiative and by Milica Mijailovic and colleagues on the Burning Lowlands dream team and VR applications.
Details about the programme
Lecture:
Conservation Basic Income: A non-market mechanism to support convivial conservation
by Robert Fletcher, Professor of Political Ecology, Sociology of Development and Change, WUR
This presentation introduces and outlines a proposal for conservation basic income (CBI) as a novel strategy for funding biodiversity conservation that moves beyond widely promoted market-based instruments (MBIs). This CBI proposal responds to two important empirical developments. The first concerns growing discussions around cash transfer programs (CTPs) and universal basic income (UBI). These are increasingly implemented or piloted yet do not usually take into account environmental issues including biodiversity conservation. The second relates to MBIs like payments for ecosystem services (PES) and REDD+ (reduced emissions through avoided deforestation and forest degradation). In practice, these programs have not only commonly failed to halt biodiversity loss and alleviate poverty but have also largely abandoned their market-based origins, leading to calls for moving beyond market-based conservation entirely. The CBI proposal aims to integrate and transcend these existing mechanisms as part of a broader paradigm shift towards convivial conservation that foregrounds concerns for social justice and equity.
Session 1:
What is in our clothes? making sense of textile materials.
Organiser: Jane Tynan, Assistant Professor Design History & Theory, Faculty of Humanities, VU
The fashion industry makes various commitments to environmental sustainability but what does this mean in practice? Can we continue to consume non-renewable textile materials? A system locked into environmental unsustainability is shown in the lack of transparency about links between fossil fuels and textile materials. Given that the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles aims to ensure that by 2030 all textile products use recycled fibres free of hazardous substances (European Commission, 2022), this session explores the environmental cost of synthetic textiles used in everyday clothing. We invite participants to engage in direct sensory engagement with textile materials as a route to carbon literacy. Collective sense-making brings people into a tactile relationship with textiles but also disrupts the fashion industry's reliance on image to sell clothes.
Session 2:
From Past to Future: Long-term patterns of connectivity and fragmentation in network societies
by Dries Daems, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Art and Culture, History, Antiquity/ Network Institute, VU
Humans are inherently social beings that build societies based on the exchange of information. We often consider connectivity and information exchange as inherently desirable. Social interactions save us from isolation, trade connections provide exciting new goods, and diplomatic relations overcome political tensions. In recent years, however, the pendulum has started to swing the other way with increasing geopolitical divides and growing multipolarity, economic protectionism, and the return of war at our doorstep. Human societies are continuously shifting across spectrum between connectivity and fragmentation in political, economic, cultural, and social networks.
It is impossible to consider the implications of such shifts based on the timescales typical for most studies of modern society. Castells argued that the technological revolution at the end of the 20th century constituted a profound change in contemporary society, giving rise to ‘network societies’ within a globally connected world. Yet, the lack of historical perspectives addressing long-term shifts in connectivity and isolation seriously hampers our ability to understand and contextualize the major transformations we have witnessed during the rise of modern societies and their potential futures. This session aims to provide an outline for an interdisciplinary research agenda that integrates long-term perspectives in our reflections on the ramifications of connectivity and fragmentation in human societies from the past to the future.
Session 3:
The Regenerative Business Leaders initiative: The Anthropocene Navigators help to navigate towards a regenerative future.
by Jorge de Sousa, Renee Wansdronk, Kenneth Rijsdijk, Sjoerd Kluiving, Robert Fletcher
The Regenerative Business Leaders initiative is positively spirited, and solution driven. Building on the vast omnicultural body of knowledge since the prehistoric emergence of humans. Aware of its co-evolution with species and spiritual connection with the land. Aware that humans have at present an unprecedented impact on the biosphere. Aware that humans have an unprecedented opportunities to create sustainable happy futures. Realising that we shape the quality of our biosphere. Exploiting the possibilities to monitor net positive effects on the biosphere. Realising that we can shape the quality of our futures. Exploiting scientific – systemic and indigenous knowledge to co create the future. To embed business activities in worldviews. To humbly out scale what is considered successful. Builds, shapes and shares stewardship of sustainable future exploiting the regenerative power of the planet and the people. Come think, re-think and discuss with the Regenerative Business Leaders initiative on the Road to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Open for companies and scientists. Our keynote speaker Robert Fletcher will introduce the industry of ecotourism as a case in this session. This session is the first workshop of the Regenerative Business Leaders initiative: Growth without Depletion on the road to Davos.
Session 4:
Burning Lowlands: a VU Dream Team to build societal resilience
By: Milica Mijailovic, Christoph Geib, Eva Koppen, Melanie Tamura, Aly Ranucci and Bettina Nardelli
How do we protect our nature, engage in sustainable agriculture, create space for recreation, increase biodiversity while ensuring our safety from devastating natural disasters? Welcome to Burning Lowlands, the Dream Team dedicated to finding solutions around the increasing impacts of climate change. Risks are increasing worldwide, and the Netherlands is also increasingly facing them. Yet our society is still insufficiently prepared for this new reality. Over the past year, the focus of the Dream team has been on: - How people perceive fire risks, using maps and visualisations.
Policy options and stakeholders' perspectives, such as wildlife managers, farmers and recreationists. - Technological innovations, such as improved protective equipment for firefighters and AI-driven risk communication in collaboration with MEJOR Technologies. For this session also two other VR specialists and researchers are invited/ Please visit our session to discuss the program of the upcoming year.
