Future Forests

This event was a co-creation of the forestry faculties of the University of Helsinki, University of British Columbia, and Oregon State University. Its goal is to stimulate conversation around innovative ideas and build connection during this pandemic period. Watch the video below as we explore these complex questions in a discussion with global experts from four continents whose expertise spans technology, business, governance, and conservation.

Despite centuries of improvement in the management of forests and natural resources, the state of our climate and health of our global ecosystems continue to diminish. Can new technologies and new approaches still open up the possibility of genuinely sustainable futures?
Given the scale of the challenges we face, is it still possible to harness the knowledge of local communities and the power of global markets to bring forward game-changing solutions?

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Organizers

Event

Angus Hervey, co-founder, Future Crunch | Disruptive Innovation and the Future of Forestry
Suvi Haimi, CEO and Co- Founder, Sulapac® | The Case for Business - Breaking into the Circular Economy
Andy White, Coordinator, Rights and Resources Initiative | Old Castes, New Norms, and the Disruptive Power of Land Rights and Gender Justice in the 21st Century
Shannon Hagerman, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia | The Politics of Disruption and the Struggle to Unlock Transformations in Natural Resources Conservation

The program will include opportunities for questions and discussion with the audience.

Speakers

Angus Hervey, Co-founder, Future Crunch

Angus is a political economist and a journalist specialising in the impact of disruptive technologies on society. He is a co-founder at Future Crunch. He was the founding community manager of Random Hacks of Kindness, a global initiative from Google, IBM, Microsoft, NASA and the World Bank to create open-source technology solutions to social challenges. He was also the first editorial manager for Global Policy, one of the world's leading international policy journals. He holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics, where he was the Ralph Miliband Scholar.

Suvi Haimi, CEO & Co-founder, Sulapac Ltd

Biochemist Dr. Suvi Haimi’s concern about the ever-growing amounts of plastic waste spark the inspiration to develop a sustainable solution. She dedicated her expertise to accelerate the transition towards the circular economy. In 2016, Haimi founded Sulapac with Dr. Laura Tirkkonen-Rajasalo and Dr. Antti Pärssinen. In addition to innovating the materials, Haimi has been the key person gathering the passionate people behind the company. Her vision is to make Sulapac the #1 sustainable material to replace plastic.

Andy White, Coordinator of Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)

Andy White is Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a global coalition of over 150 organizations dedicated to advancing the forestland and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendants. Andy also serves as President of the Rights and Resources Group, the nonprofit coordinating mechanism of the RRI Coalition based in Washington, D.C. Prior to co-founding RRI in 2005, Andy served as Senior Director of Programs at Forest Trends and Natural Resource Management Specialist at the World Bank. He also worked as a consultant to the International Food Policy Institute, Save the Children Federation, and the Inter-American Foundation. He has worked extensively in Haiti, Mexico, and China. As Coordinator of RRI, he advises policy research, advocacy, and engagement in Asia, Latin America, and Africa and leads initiatives and networks to advance RRI’s mission. His research and publications have focused on forest tenure and policy, forest industry and trade, as well as the role of forests, communities, and institutions in climate change. Andy has a PhD in forest economics, a M.A. in anthropology from the University of Minnesota, and a B.S. in forestry from Humboldt State University.

Shannon Hagerman, University of British Columbia

Shannon Hagerman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management and Principal Investigator of the Social-Ecological Systems Research Group at the University of British Columbia. Her science-policy focussed research agenda examines the diverse ways that individuals know, value and interact with nature, the social and political processes by which these perspectives and experiences are (or aren’t) incorporated into policy, and the impacts of policy as it shapes management in specific locales. She has a longstanding interest in ‘disruptions’ in natural resources conservation; her research on the emergence and evolution of novel conservation interventions (including assisted migration) over the past 15 years reveals the powerful but often unrecognized role of knowledge politics in enabling and constraining transformative change.