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Prof.?Tobias?Kuemmerle?(Geography?Department and IRI?THESys) and Prof.?Ignacio?Farías?(Department of?European Ethnology and IRI?THESys) from the?Humboldt-Universit?t?zu?Berlin?(HU)?are receiving?an ERC Consolidator Grant. The renowned grant is?worth?up to 2 million euros and is awarded by the European Research Council to top researchers in Europe?pursuing?potentially?ground-breaking projects in basic research.

Reconciling land use and conservation

The?project?SYSTEMSHIFT?(Shifting to a Land Systems Paradigm in Conservation) by Professor?Kuemmerle?investigates?how?land-use?impacts?biodiversity,?using the?world’s?tropical dry forests?as study case. The focus?of the project?is on the development of a new, socio-ecological approach to conservation?assessments and?planning?that?centres around?land-use actors.?

This?will?make it possible to better understand the complex?and diverse?relationships between land users and their environment – and?how?this translates into?threats to?biodiversity.?At the same time, Professor?Kuemmerle?and his team?will?develop?novel?methods?to?uncover the interactions between?different?threats to biodiversity?that?have?so far mainly?been?studied?in isolation, such as habitat destruction and poaching.?Together, this will?provide the foundation?for?developing new?conservation strategies?that reconcile land use and conservation goals.?The project focuses on the unique dry forests of South America,?as they are among the fastest disappearing ecosystems on?Earth. Although?agribusiness?agriculture continues to expand?rapidly?into the last?forest?areas?in these regions. Very little is known, however, how these?land-use?changes?impact?on biodiversity?and how?the?ongoing?loss of biodiversity can be effectively confronted.?

How invisible waves affect people and the environment

The WAVEMATTERS?project?(Urban Vibrations: How Physical Waves Come to Matter in Contemporary Urbanism) by Professor?Farías?studies cities as critical zones,?in which environmental processes, infrastructures and human life are interwoven.?The?focus?is?posed on?physical waves, such as thermal radiation, sound waves and radio frequencies,?that?expand?through our?urban environments, traversing?human and non-human bodies.?Although the effects of bodily exposure to waves are well?known,?waves are recurrently subject to major knowledge controversies and social conflicts.

In his project, Professor Farías explores the question of how sound waves, radio?frequencies?or thermal radiation?come to?matter: what leads to?certain waves?being?associated with certain bodies and environmental processes? How do they become?the subject?of public interest??Under what conditions?waves lead to urbanistic interventions?such as?noise mitigation? How do political and social controversies?such as?that surrounding the construction of the?5G mobile network?arise? The researchers working on?the project?supplement?conventional?ethnographic methods?by also engaging in a?multimodal collaboration with actors?in?the field,?so as?to actively participate in?practices of knowledge?production. The project is?thus?dedicated to a fundamental?political challenge of our time:?the question of how the mostly abstract, gradual?and invisible environmental transformations of the Anthropocene are addressed, problematised and politicised by different actors.

Further information

Humboldt-Universit?t:

• Working group?of?Prof.?Kuemmerle
• Working group of?Prof. Farías
• Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems?(IRI?THESys)
• European Research Council

Contacts

Prof.?Dr.?Tobias?Kuemmerle
Geography?Department and IRI?THESys
Humboldt-Universit?t?zu?Berlin

Phone: +49?30 2093-9372
tobias.kuemmerle@hu-berlin.de?

Prof.?Dr?Ignacio?Farías
Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin
Department of?European Ethnology,
Georg Simmel?Center?for Metropolitan Studies?and IRI?THESys

Phone: +49 30 2093-70633
ignacio.farias@hu-berlin.de?

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