Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lectures: Protecting carbon and communities: Transforming boreal fire management into a climate solution

About this event

Climate change is intensifying boreal wildfires. While fire is a natural process in these northern ecosystems, fires are burning more frequently and severely, with impacts ranging from local to global. Northern Indigenous communities are losing critical ecosystems that support traditional ways of life; smoke from Canadian wildfires is filling lungs across North America; and catastrophic fires are burning deeper into the soil—releasing ancient carbon, accelerating permafrost thaw, and worsening the impacts of climate change across the globe. In this talk, Kayla dives into the work Woodwell is stewarding to better understand how fire management could be used, shaped, and transformed to better protect communities while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions from wildfire on carbon and permafrost-rich landscapes. This effort involves science, policy, people, compromise and a lot of humility. This lecture is sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program and the Biology Department.

From School of Arts and Sciences