Environmental Studies

This course examines the interactions between insects and humans worldwide and through a multidisciplinary lens. Insects can be harnessed for food, medicine, and construction material. They can inspire architecture and design and have prominent roles in myth and songs and shape language. Insects have inspirated films, performances, music, and visual arts where artists aim to challenge our emotional and aesthetic connection to insects. Insects are both biologically and socially complex, from which important parallels to human biology and societal organization can be drawn. Despite the importance of insects to humans, insects have been heavily impacted by human leading to enormous insect declines. 

This course covers a variety of environmental issues and how international law addresses them. Students will understand different treaties and customs and how States interact regarding environmental issues. The course utilizes lectures, discussion of case studies, and presentations to consider the extent to which environmental law is effective, current challenges, and the future of environmental protection. 

In this course we will explore the relationships between people, nature and space as well as the production and use of open space (e.g., changing interpretation and usage patterns in relation to the city and open space or the change in living, work and leisure) against the background of social development. Particular emphasis is placed on gender as an analytical category for spatial concepts and spatial actions as well the consideration of the interaction between theory and practice. That also includes current trends in spatial development.
 

This course explores the relationship between landscape-scale spatial patterns and the ecological, physical, and social process that drive environmental change. It then applies this to real-world problems to achieve sustainable landscapes in the context of biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and social-ecological outcomes.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues have attracted enormous attention from investors, regulators, and other stakeholders. This course introduces the concept of sustainability reporting and responsible investing. It evaluates the potential benefits of firms disclosing ESG information, as well as significant challenges to be overcome, including the risk of greenwashing. Students learn about existing and emerging ESG regulations and frameworks for ESG performance metrics. The course also explores how key capital market participants, such as asset managers, analysts, and banks, could incorporate ESG information into their investment decisions.

The course develops an awareness of the structure and function of tropical forest ecosystems and provides an intellectually stimulating understanding of the biophysical, ecological and anthropic processes which characterize these environments. To develop an awareness of the human impacts on these important systems and the kinds of geographical tools available for monitoring, modelling, and mitigation of the worst effects of these impacts. 

This course examines the way systems thinking is used in sustainability studies, including in local, regional and international contexts. Students are introduced to some of the strengths, limitations and major challenges inherent in this approach to helping us address complex interdisciplinary problems.

This course examines the field of environmental sociology. In particular, it examines how societies build a sense of human/nature divide into their concepts of collective identity and how the struggle to responsibly utilize natural resources is a vexing social problem. It focuses on environmental social movements globally, analyzing how this growing site of social conflict interacts with other inequalities. It also explores the social transformations being enacted globally to build sustainability, improve human/animal coexistence, address environmental racism, and to think about climate change risk beyond the nation-state.

This course examines the interaction between forests and people, linking forest types and locations to their products and services. It covers sustainable forest management, the role of forestry tackling climate change, and Treaty of Waitangi obligations.

The course examines contemporary social theoretical explanations of the salience of risk within so-called "late modern" society.  The course then explores the factors that shape the politics, processes, and outcomes of risk governance, as well as the factors that shape public perceptions of environmental risk and the associated problems posed for policy-makers, businesses, and other stakeholders in communicating risk issues.  The course finishes with reflections on the future management of environmental risk issues.