S.E.W.’s work
We aim to change the world through science in service of improving the relationships between people and nature.
We lead with empathy towards people, species, and ecosystems. We work directly with communities to ensure that the science we do has maximum value and impact. We are open to new ideas, new people, new disciplines, and new approaches to discovery.
Major threads in our work
THREAD 1: Ecosystem service assessment and monitoring
How can we monitor the resilience and sustainability of social-ecological landscapes? We are especially interested monitoring that captures how people and ecosystem services interact across and among landscapes over long time periods.
Our work in this thread focuses on defining ecosystem services, developing multi-scale indicators, and understanding methods for monitoring and assessment across scales.
Thread 2: Co-production of ecosystem services
Despite increasing recognition that ecosystem services are co-produced by natural and human drivers, most ecosystem service models either overlook, or overemphasize, the role of human drivers such as technology, management, or infrastructure.
Our work in this thread aims to explore the interactions between natural capital and human inputs in the provision of ecosystem services, and how those interactions should inform management and decision-making.
THREAD 3: Multifunctional working landscapes
Sustainable and resilient human co-existence with landscapes requires attention to multiple ecosystem services rather than the typical focus on intensive extraction of a single benefit. Yet we don't always know how to design or interact with landscapes to make multifunctionality happen.
Our work in this thread focuses on why some landscapes are more multifunctional than others, and how we can improve multifunctionality in all working landscapes.
THREAD 4: Positive futures thinking
We are bombarded with dystopian visions of future calamity, visions which run the risk of becoming self-fulfilling. Our team studies how development of inspirational visions of better futures has the potential to be an important component of a transformation to sustainability.
Work in this thread focuses studying the emergence of new thinking, innovative ways of living, and different means to connect people and nature, sometimes called “seeds of good Anthropocenes”, and how scenario building can improve decision-making.
We love collaborating with others
