Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance

The Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance (GHEA) is an organization of social scientists, natural scientists, historians, educators, students, policy makers, and others interested in promoting cutting-edge research, education, and application of the socioecological dynamics of coupled human and natural systems across scales of space and time. GHEA membership is free and open for participation to anyone who registers and agrees to follow the GHEA rules. We currently have over 130 members.

Cooper, J and Sheets, P. (eds) (2012) Surviving Sudden Environmental Change: Answers from Archaeology. University Press of Colorado, Boulder p256.

The University Press of Colorado have just published a new book on how the archaeological record can help us to understand how we can cope with sudden environmental change. This book arose out of the October 2009 meeting in Maine, which lead to the creation of GHEA and this is the first major publication from our group.

The editors, Jago Cooper and Payson Sheets, have brought together authors from a wide variety of backgrounds to contribute to this publication. It is available to buy for only $19.99, but it can be downloaded for free as a PDF from The University Press of Colorado

This will hopefully be the first of many collaborative publications from the GHEA community. Feel free to join GHEA here.

 

Sustainability and Heritage: How Can the Past Contribute to a Sustainable Future?

International Conference: Call for Papers
May 29th-30th 2012
Orkney College, University of the Highlands and Islands, Kirkwall, Scotland

This interdisciplinary conference will bring together academics and practitioners to discuss and critically analyse Heritage and Sustainability through presentations, posters and round table discussion, under the following themes:

  • Medium-long term trajectories (millennial-centennial scales) of key sustainability issues such as resource utilisation, and the impacts of climate/environmental change in communities in the past
  • Heritage and resource management, sustainable development and participation
  • The role and potential of heritage in education for sustainability and in underpinning sustainability literacy initiatives (such as Education for Sustainable Development & Education For Sustainability)

Download flyer (pdf)

 


HERC Launch: The Human Ecodynamics Research Center (HERC) at the CUNY Graduate Center is coordinating the effort of scholars in a formal research collaborative addressing crucial issues of sustainability, resilience, and the future of humans on earth. HERC focuses on the past and present global interactions of humans and the natural world, using fields of inquiry and methods of investigation from anthropology, archaeology, sociology, geosciences, climatology, biological sciences, art, history, and political science.

 

Grant Award: Sophia Perdikaris and other GHEA members have been awarded a new NSF grant titled the Office of Polar Programs Science, Engineering, & Education Research Coordination Network grant no 1140106. The project officially starts on 1st December 2011 and a one page summary is available here.

 

The Working Groups section of the website is now available. GHEA members can create working groups and join groups that have already been created. Non-GHEA members can read the Working Group pages, public posts in the forums, but cannot contribute to the forums or view private posts.

GHEA sees the expansion, integration, and augmentation of cutting edge human ecodynamics basic research, education, and science-based policy as critical to the development of a more sustainable approach to human-environment engagement in the future. This research must include the integration of a temporal perspective in short medium and deep time scales. We believe that as a result of focused efforts, by 2020 society can be better equipped to utilize the results of this research for practical problem solving.

GHEA’s mission is to facilitate the growth in effective human-ecodynamics research by:

  1. bringing professional and student members of the GHEA community together to explore cutting edge questions of theory, method and case studies in Human Ecodynamics in the past and present
  2. producing academic articles and books as well as popular texts and media synthesizing the results of these focused intellectual engagements
  3. providing a forum for interdisciplinary community building and research collaborations
  4. fostering the growth of the GHEA research community though student outreach and education
  5. pursuing policy changes where GHEA science supports such engagement

GHEA exists to facilitate greater communication, collaboration, and engagement in human-ecodynamic research, education and policy by operating as a “bottom-up”, community-driven entity. This web portal is set up to facilitate individual participation in GHEA. The effort will succeed only through the efforts of participants. Modeled after other successful, grass-roots movements, this web site has been created to allow users to define the directions and emphasis of GHEA identity, activities, and productivity.