Lecture by David Hik
27 February 2012
14h00: Room 227
Aweg 30
International Polar Year 2007-2008 heightened public awareness of environmental issues and has opened a dialogue with policy makers to find sustainable solutions in the face on unprecedented and rapid change.
Many IPY activities resulted in significant advances in our understanding of polar ecosystems, interactions between biological, physical and human systems, and practical applications of knowledge. The magnitude of the changes in the Polar regions and the strength of their interactions with the rest of the Earth System has motivated a discussion concerning a decadal program of polar activities that involves a sustained focus on observations, research, and services.
Identifying and acting on the grand challenges for ‘global sustainability’ research and transferring scientific outputs into reliable short-medium term advice for decision makers will be increasingly critical over the coming decades.
Prof. Hik will summarize some of the key ecological results that have emerged from IPY and the current approach for d
esigning a new Decadal Initiative in the Polar Regions.
David Hik is
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Northern Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta. For the past 25 years his research interests have focused on the effects of environmental variability on interactions between plants and vertebrate herbivores in northern tundra and high mountain environments. After completing his PhD at the University of British Columbia he worked at CSIRO in Canberra before returning to a faculty position at the University of Toronto. He moved to the University of Alberta in 1999. From 2004-2009 he was Executive Director of the Canadian International Polar Year (IPY) Secretariat. He is currently Acting Director of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute (CCI), President of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), vice-chair of the Arctic Council–led Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) initiative, and co-chair of the Long-Term Polar International Cooperative Initiative Steering Group. In November 2010 he was appointed to the Canadian Polar Commission.
