Globalization and Environment Series to Explore Differences Between Northern, Southern Hemispheres

A film and lecture series on globalization and the environment that will explore the differences in the way people in the northern and southern hemispheres view conservation and the appropriate way to manage natural resources and governance will begin Tuesday, January 21, at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES).

The films will be shown on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. and the lectures will take place on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium of Sage Hall. The program will run throughout the spring as part of the series, “Globalization and the Environment: International Agendas and Local Responses.” The lectures and films are free and open to the public. For more information, call Amity Doolittle, program director of the Tropical Resources Institute and lecturer in property rights and environmental change, at F&ES, 203-432-3660.

The series is sponsored by the Tropical Resources Institute, F&ES, the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and the Coca Cola World Fund at Yale.

The film and lecture schedule is below:

January 21 Films: “Seattle Syndrome,” questions whether restrictions on trade to fight poor wages, exploitative working conditions and environmental degradation are a kind of colonialism in disguise. “Borderline Cases: environmental Matters at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” investigates the environmental impact of the nearly 2,000 factories, or “maquiladoras,” that have been built in Mexico at the U.S.-Mexico border. The factories were built by multinational corporations from the United States, Asia and Europe since the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.

January 22: “Common but Differentiated Responsibilities: The Case of the United Nations Framework Climate Convention.” The lecturer will be Donald Goldberg, senior attorney, Center for International and Environmental Law in Washington, D.C. He is an expert on climate change, ozone depletion and trade and the environment.

January 29: “Mobilizing Science for Sustainable Energy Systems” with lecturer Jeffrey Sachs, executive director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Sachs is special advisor to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and is one of the world’s leading economists on globalization.

February 4 Film: “Rum Business: Conservation, Tourism and the Bedouin of Wadi Rum.”

February 5: “Oil, Conservation, Sustainable Livelihoods in Pastoral Peoples in the Middle East.” The lecturer will be Dawn Chatty, deputy director of the Refugee Studies Center and professor of social anthropology, Oxford University, England. She is co-editor of the book “Conservation and Indigenous Mobile Peoples: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development.”

February 11 Film: “Trinkets and Beads” is the story of the Huaorani people, an Amazonian tribe, and their fight to force an oil company off their land and to protect the rainforest.

February 12: “Mining the Frontier Forests of El Dorado: Local Realities, TNCs and the Quest for Sustainable Forest Management in the Guiana Shield.” The lecturer will be Janette Forte, senior social scientist, Iwokrama International Center for Rainforest Conservation and Development. She is involved in the National Certification Standard Development Process, linked to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

February 18 Film: “Since the Company Came” is the story of a community coming to terms with social, cultural and ecological disintegration in a remote Solomon Islands village in the South Pacific.

February 19: “Rethinking the ‘Global’: Environmental Conflict within Tanzania’s Mafia Island Marine Park” with lecturer Christine Walley, assistant professor of anthropology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

March 5: “The New Views on Environmental Governance.” The lecturer, Ann Florini, senior fellow, The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., is the author of the forthcoming book, “The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World.”

March 25 Film: “Banking on Disaster” is about the disastrous consequences of paving a road through the heart of the world’s largest rainforest in Brazil.

March 26: “Indigenous Lands and Tropical Forest Conservation in the Era of Globalization,” Stephan Schwartzman, anthropologist with Environmental Defense. He creates strategies to protect tropical rainforests and their indigenous peoples, particularly the native peoples of the Brazilian rainforests.

April 2: “Fields of the Future: Under What Local and Global Conditions Can Genetic Engineering Contribute to Sustainable Agriculture?” Don Doering, senior associate, Management Institute for Environment and Business, World Resources Institute. He is the author of “Tomorrow’s Markets: Global Trends and Their Implications for Business.”

April 8 Film: “Namada: A Valley Rises” follows Medha, Baba, and more than 6,000 farmers and tribal people as they embark on an epic 200-kilometer march to draw national and international attention to human rights abuses and to pressure the Indian government into conducting a review of a dam project that will destroy tribal and farming villages.

April 9: “North-South Consensus Building on Hydro-Power,” Navroz Dubash, senior associate, Institutions and Governance, World Resources Institute. He is the author of “A Watershed in Global Governance: An Independent Assessment of the World Commission on Dams.”

April 15 Film: “Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Sorrow.” The Green Revolution is widely regarded as one of the most successful development strategies of the 20th century. But in India it has helped to create a new serf class and the dramatic yields of the early years have fallen away in the wake of pesticide poisoning and the short-lived miracle wheat strains.

April 16: “Is Agriculture the Enemy of Nature? Agro-Food Globalization and the Worldwide Farmers’ Movement for Agroecology,” Kathleen McAfee, assistant professor of social ecology and community development, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She is currently researching sustainable agriculture and agro-biodiversity in the tropics.

April 23: “The New Thrilla’ in Manila: Peasants Fighting Against Bioengineering,” David Frossard, assistant professor of anthropology, Colorado School of Mines. His research focuses on peasant ecological movements, environmental sustainability and biodiversity, ethics of development and science, and international education.

April 30: “Golden Rice: The Numerous Hurdles of a Humanitarian GMO-Project,” Ingo Potrykus, professor of plant sciences, Institute of Plant Sciences, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He is the inventor of the genetically engineered golden rice. He focuses on food security in developing countries by developing and applying genetic engineering technology to crop plants such as rice, wheat, sorghum and cassava.