Spring Seminar Series

This Spring ISR brought together a range of expertise contributing to ways that Hawaiʻi can support more resilient landscapes, including through supporting land care that reduces fire risk. These speakers helped define what land care is and where it is most needed to protect and restore broad social values. The focus was on lower to middle-elevation, largely Wao Kānaka lands, that prior to the devastating Maui wildfires, had often been overlooked in recent environmental policy decisions and investments.

The series aimed to highlight the Environmental Humanities, a field of study that has grown out of literature and ecocriticism, particularly in the disciplines of English, Art and History. A range of speakers from Theatre and Arts to Religion and history, discussed how their niche in environmental humanities can address today’s critical environmental issues and sustainability.

The Spring 2023 seminar series focused on sea level rise and coastal adaptation, the work of the Climate Resilience Collaborative (CRC), a research program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, as well as related research from public and private partners. CRC’s mission is to provide communities and the government with research results that inform effective management decisions leading to climate resilient development.

The theme for the 2021 seminar series was Sustainable Cities and Landscapes, co-hosted by the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU). The Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Live Webinar Series brought researchers and scholars together from across the Pacific Rim to engage in cross-cultural conversations around climate justice, sustainable, and social equity. See a list of the speakers and watch the event recordings.

Co-hosted by the Center for Pacific Islands Studies (CPIS), this series featured presenters whose multidisciplinary work showcases the many ways that Pacific communities develop their capacity to overcome a wide range of challenges. The talks highlighted the diverse ways that people demonstrate resilience in forging community empowerment, innovative solutions, and sustainable futures across the Pacific and beyond toward regional and global well-being.