{"id":58248,"date":"2016-04-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-anthropology-marine-affairs-professor-studies-importance-of-human-wellbeing-in-global-efforts-to-protect-planet\/"},"modified":"2016-04-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T00:00:00","slug":"uri-anthropology-marine-affairs-professor-studies-importance-of-human-wellbeing-in-global-efforts-to-protect-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2016\/04\/uri-anthropology-marine-affairs-professor-studies-importance-of-human-wellbeing-in-global-efforts-to-protect-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 anthropology, marine affairs professor studies importance of human wellbeing in global efforts to protect planet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t溏心vlog免费B站 professor Carlos Garc\u00eda-Quijano is co-author of paper in \u201cScience\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I., April 11, 2016\u2014Protecting our planet is a worthy mission, but it can\u2019t be done without ensuring that any changes create a just and fair world.<\/p>\n


\nThat\u2019s the message from a 溏心vlog免费B站 anthropology and marine affairs professor who recently co-authored a paper in the journal Science with 16 other leading social scientists.<\/p>\n


\n溏心vlog免费B站 professor Carlos Garc\u00eda-Quijano argues that success at creating a sustainable world depends on how fairly the burdens and benefits of sustainability are shared.<\/p>\n


\n \u201cEnvironmental conservation and social justice are inseparable,\u201d says Carlos Garc\u00eda-Quijano, who lives in Providence. \u201cPlans for a healthier planet that don\u2019t take into account human wellbeing and quality of life are likely to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe authors identify six other social concepts, in addition to wellbeing: culture; values; inequality; justice; power and agency\u2014or a sense of self-determination. Garc\u00eda-Quijano says the concepts are often overlooked when people are trying to protect ecosystems.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe have to stop looking at human beings and the natural world as separate,\u201d he says. \u201cLike other living beings, humans are part of ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nNew fishing regulations, for example, could be disruptive to a community that has relied on fishing for decades to earn a living. Garc\u00eda-Quijano argues that regulations need to consider the wellbeing of the fishermen, and others connected to the activity.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThere could be an alternative job in a factory elsewhere, but that could be a major loss in quality of life and social identity for the fishermen,\u201d says Garc\u00eda-Quijano. \u201cIt could be devastating for someone used to working outdoors and being his or her own boss to suddenly be working in a contained environment with a supervisor in control. That\u2019s an example why it’s crucial to understand that any efforts to create a more sustainable world impact people and their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhile these concepts are harder to quantify than, say, carbon emissions, income per capita or gross national product, Garc\u00eda-Quijano says the social concepts are, indeed, measureable by applying insights from social scientists.<\/p>\n


\nAlso, scholars argue that the poorest people in the world are going to be the ones most affected by climate change, making the study even more relevant, says Garc\u00eda-Quijano. <\/p>\n


\nHe is energized by the growing collaboration between environmental researchers and policy makers, and social scientists. \u201cOur input is important for lasting environmental change,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fact that our paper is being published in a major science journal shows that this issue is moving in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe paper is the culmination of three workshops hosted by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, and Washington Sea Grant. The primary author was Christina Hicks, a social environmental scientist at Lancaster University in England.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe have more papers on the way,\u201d says Garc\u00eda-Quijano. \u201cSome will examine how to measure wellbeing specifically, and how to engage the best available social science in policymaking.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nGarc\u00eda-Quijano grew up in R\u00edo Piedras, a neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico. He spent his childhood diving and surfing in the Caribbean, and reading about wildlife and the environment. <\/p>\n


\nSocial justice causes were close to his heart. \u201cWhere I grew up it was a beautiful place, but there was a lot of inequality in access to resources and services,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was unfair.\u201d After graduating from high school, he went to the University of Puerto Rico at Mayag\u00fcez, a highly regarded science school on the island, to study marine biology.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI saw how fishermen were sometimes marginalized by state agencies,\u201d he says. \u201cMost importantly, their knowledge was often ignored in creating environmental policy. I turned to anthropology to understand the human side of marine environmental problems.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFrom there, he went to the University of Georgia in Athens, which has one of the top environmental anthropology programs in the United States. He earned a doctorate in anthropology, and did his field work in the Caribbean on fisheries and human ecology. <\/p>\n


\nHe joined 溏心vlog免费B站 in 2009. Now he is an associate professor in the departments of sociology and anthropology and marine affairs. His research focuses on how culture and society influence the relationships between people and the environment.<\/p>\n


\nHe has studied the traditional knowledge and economic behavior of fishermen in Puerto Rico, the wellbeing of Latina teenagers in New England and the management practices of Rhode Island lobstermen. His latest project is fresh off the headlines: the evolving relationships between people and great white sharks on Cape Cod.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cOur team is studying how people are adapting and changing their behaviors in response to the sharks,\u201d he says. \u201cThe sharks are a protected species and they\u2019re a valuable part of the ecosystem so people can’t just go out and fish them out. They need to adapt.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above:

\nCarlos Garc\u00eda-Quijano, a 溏心vlog免费B站 anthropology and marine affairs professor.

\nPhoto by Joe Giblin.\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

溏心vlog免费B站 professor Carlos Garc\u00eda-Quijano is co-author of paper in \u201cScience\u201d KINGSTON, R.I., April 11, 2016\u2014Protecting our planet is a worthy mission, but it can\u2019t be done without ensuring that any changes create a just and fair world. That\u2019s the message from a 溏心vlog免费B站 anthropology and marine affairs professor who recently co-authored a paper in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}