Phil joins The Nature Conservancy

I am excited to announce that he is moving on from his career in academia and taking an exciting new position as the inaugural Global Director, Human Dimensions Science, at the Nature Conservancy. In this role, I will help ensure that TNC’s science and practice incorporates attention to social and cultural dimensions of environmental problems and elevates local voices in the development and implementation of solutions. I am particularly excited to bring anti-colonial, anti-racist, and queer framings to the world of conservation, which has for its short history been burdened by its roots in white supremacy and land theft.

I asked a lot of hard questions when thinking about taking this position, and am convinced that at the Conservancy I can make a real difference in elevating people-centered conservation and climate action, through strategies that empower and that build equity and start progress on historical injustices for oppressed and marginalized communities around the world.

Learn more about The Nature Conservancy’s extensive global science here.

Phil Loring to participate in "Food Day" at COP15

Sponsored and organized by WWF and a variety of other partners, The Food Day at Rio Convention Pavilion is a full day of events, discussion and showcasing of solutions at COP15, the 15th Conference of the Parties for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (The Rio Convention). By focusing on transforming food systems to reverse biodiversity loss and achieve food security and nutrition for all, this day will help countries, organisations and the science community develop stronger plans, actions for implementation to achieve the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) under the Convention on Biological Diversity. It will also explore cross-cutting policy responses spanning multiple global agreements.

Phil will be speaking as a part of the “Power of the Consumer” session, which runs from 15:00-16:00 EST. Click here for the full day’s schedule.

Phil Loring to participate in Reuters Impact

Reuters impact is a premiere global leadership summit that engages with the most pressing challenges facing global society. This year, Phil will join international executives and thought leaders for a panel entitled, “The Future of Food, from Security to Sustainability.“ The panel will air first on Oct 1, 2022 through the Reuters global livestream and then will be archived below!

Finding Our Niche: Toward a Restorative Human Ecology

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Finding Our Niche Invites Us to Imagine a World Where People and Nature Thrive Together

New York City, NY, and Toronto, CAN, June 9, 2021 — Win-win scenarios abound in the natural world — examples of elegant multispecies interactions that have resulted from millennia of evolutionary patterns and behaviors, explains anthropologist and ecologist Philip A. Loring. Somewhere along the way, however, perhaps in our efforts to conserve and protect the resources found in nature, we humans have completely removed ourselves from it, relegating our species to spectator status on the outside of this harmonious connectivity looking in. It is time for a new approach to sustainability and stewardship.

“It is indeed possible to coexist with the rest of the natural world, to restore the damage we’ve caused. We do this not through self-quarantine, by leaving nature alone. We achieve this by integrating our lives and destinies with those of the species, landscapes and seascapes around us,” Loring writes in his thought-provoking new book, Finding Our Niche: Toward a Restorative Human Ecology. The book is the winner of a Gold Medal from the 2020 Independent Publisher Awards and a Silver Medal from the 2020 Nautilus Book Awards.

Loring compellingly explores the tragedies and myths of Western society and offers fascinating and hopeful examples that can guide us toward reconciling our damaging settler-colonial histories and tremendous environmental missteps so that we might realign our lives with the rest of the natural world.

Drawing upon numerous life experiences in such diverse places as Alaska, Mexico, and Ireland, Loring offers a set of ecological metaphors, including keystone, engineer and sentinel, which collectively contribute to a more optimistic vision for our future, one where people and nature thrive together. Interwoven are stories of Loring’s personal struggles to reconcile his identity as a white settler living and working on stolen Indigenous lands.

In a moment when our world is hanging in the balance, Finding Our Niche is a hopeful exploration of humanity’s place in the natural world, one that focuses on how we can heal and reconcile our unique human ecologies to achieve more sustainable and just societies.

Dr. Philip Loring is a widely respected anthropologist, ecologist and writer. His work focuses on the intersection of sustainability, food systems and social justice, and he is particularly interested in solutions where people and ecosystems thrive together. He studied at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and his research has taken him to such diverse places as the temperate rainforests of British Columbia, the prairies of Saskatchewan, the highlands of Guatemala and the Sonoran Desert in Mexico. An avid science communicator, Loring emphasizes writing, film and other forms of storytelling to reach diverse audiences. He has published over 50 academic papers, multiple book chapters and reports, and numerous essays for popular online magazines including Ensia.com. He has also produced several short films and given presentations in numerous international venues, including for the OECD, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and TEDx. He is also a regular contributor to CBC Radio Syndication. Finding Our Niche is his first book. 

For more information, please visit www.conservationofchange.org, or connect with the author on Twitter (@conservechange) or on Facebook (FindingOurNicheBook).

Finding Our Niche: Available for Preorder now!

I am proud to report that my first book, Finding Our Niche, is available for preorder wherever books are sold. It will be released Oct/Nov 2020.

Here’s the publisher’s website

Here it is at IndieBound!

Here it is at Amazon.ca

And check out this amazing endorsement from Gleb Raygorodetsky, author of the award winning, Archipelago of Hope:

“Finding Our Niche is an important read for anybody seeking to understand the root causes of escalating and converging global environmental and social crises. The unflinching analysis of our collective predicament is an integral part of a deeply personal and highly engaging narrative of Loring’s quest to reimagine our links with the places we inhabit, relationships with the original stewards of those places, and the inextricable links to all our relations.”

Richard Nyiawung receives funding from the Robin Rigby Trust

Richard Nyiawung, a PhD student in the CoC Lab, recently received $12k from the Robin RIgby Trust at St. Mary’s University for research with a network of women oyster farmers in The Gambia, Africa! This research will explore how this network of women is innovating to build social enterprise and food security during times of rapid social and ecological change.

Emily De Sousa wins the Science-Policy Youth Award from the Canadian Science Policy Centre!

Emily De Sousa is a master’s student in the Department of Geography at the University of Guelph and part of the inaugural graduate student cohort for Coastal Routes. Yesterday, she accepted the Science Policy Award of Excellence Award, Youth Category, from the Canadian Science Policy Centre. Her proposal, titled “Eliminating Seafood Fraud: A Fishy Approach to Food Policy,” offered a robust, science-based proposal to enhance traceability, labeling, and the use of DNA barcoding in the fisheries supply chain.