ECOS courses

Global Perspectives on Adaptive Wildlife Management

PhD Course, 7,5 ETCS

SLU’s research school ECOS (Ecology and Society) and the Nsasani Trust in South Africa, in collaboration with Nelson Mandela University, are offering the PhD course Global Perspectives on Adaptive Wildlife Management.

In 2019, this exciting course received an award for best PhD course at SLU’s faculty of forest science. Here you can get an impression of the 2019 course.

The course was originally planned to be held in January 2021, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic we have had to postpone the course by one year. Because of this, we are opening up the course for another round of applications from SLU students. We will closely follow the progress of the pandemic in both Sweden and South Africa to make sure we only travel to South Africa when this can be done in a safe and responsible way.

The course brings together European and African students to jointly analyze and contrast global wildlife management, and general conservation challenges using the adaptive management framework. We want to specifically highlight that although the course will focus on wildlife, we will cover many aspects of adaptive management that can be translated to other natural resources and we will adapt the program to the participants’ interests and needs.

The course is highly interdisciplinary, integrating fields such as political science and ecology, and students will be interacting with a diverse group of European and South African scientists, conservation managers and local NGOs. A major aim of the course is to lift the African conservation and natural science perspective and contribute to a more balanced south-north relation. The core part of the course is a 16-day field trip at Nsasani’s Science Leadership campus in Kruger National Park, South Africa (www.nsasani.co.za/our-facility).

Application

Application deadline is 15 July 2021. Each prospective student shall present a brief CV and a motivation of no more than 200 words, outlining how this course will benefit their studies. Make sure not to miss this deadline because the number of student spots in this course is limited. Please note there is no course fee, but students will need to cover travel costs and we ask for a contribution to accommodation costs.

For more information, see the attached flyer. You can contact us for questions or application at ecos@slu.se.

The course purpose: To provide students with a broader, multidisciplinary, understanding of adaptive and sustainable wildlife management in northern and southern hemisphere systems. The main underlying objective is to train the students' critical, analytical and out-of-the-box thinking. To this end, we will discuss how certain paradigms (e.g. Euro-American) dominate natural science and natural resource management and how an increasing focus on more diverse perspectives may lead to alternative solutions for sustainable development. As a result, students should be better adapted to solving the world's future wildlife management issues.

Learn more about the course plan and check our experiences of our previous course.

The very popular Behavioural Environmental Economics course+Workshop will be offered in early summer (June). The course aims to provide understanding of topics in environmental and resource economics from a behavioural economics perspective. Participants will learn how to apply the theory and the methods such as field and laboratory experiments to the environmental issues to discover how individuals actually behave, and how normative theories and frameworks fail to capture the actual behaviour. The course consists of lectures and student seminars, which is meant to ensure that participants receive feedback related to their research ideas from the lecturers and other participants. The course meetings run from 16-24 June, and will be entirely online (via zoom). The course instructors are drawn from different Universities and research Centers across Europe, including the UK, Netherlands, and Sweden. Please apply before May 23, 2021.

The course especially invites graduate (PhD) students who are working on topics in environmental economics from a behavioural perspective. Master students, early career researchers and students from other fields of social sciences are also welcome to participate in the course. For further details, including the application procedure, please see:

Behavioural Environmental Economics course+Workshop 2021

Number of credits: 7.5 ECTS
Subject: Economics
Part of research school: ECOS, Ecology and society
Education cycle: Third
Marking scale: Pass / Fail
Language: English
Prerequisites: None
Objective: The aim of the course is: (i) to introduce participants to how economics approaches renewable natural resources management and conservation; and (ii) to illustrate and discuss how principles grounded in economics are applied to specific natural resource contexts. The target audience for this course is primarily doctoral candidates in a variety of fields that intersect with natural resource management who wish to familiarise themselves with the fundamental economic principles related to managing natural resources.

Learn more and apply

PhD course

Basic course in ecology for multidisciplinary PhD students with a background in other disciplines. The course covers three main topics:

1) Populations, communities and ecosystems (1.5 ECTS),

2) Resources, competition and predation (1.5 ECTS), and

3) conservation ecology (2 ECTS)

All in an intensive week in Umeå, self-study and the presentation of findings in a final symposium in Umeå.

See course plan

January 22 – 29 2019

This course will introduce general concepts of Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Use.

Application deadline: 18 January 2019.

Number of credits: 1.5 ECTS
Subject: Biology, Economics, Forest Management and Products
Education cycle: Third
Marking scale: Passed / Failed
Prerequisites: Admitted to a postgraduate program. The course is suitable for all graduate students who do not specialize in Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Use.
Scope: Basic course
Purpose: The aim of the course is to introduce general concepts of Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Use.
Learning outcomes: Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to:
-define the concept "Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management" and describe the basic content and disciplines within the field.
- have basic understanding of natural resource management within a social-ecological system context.
- have a basic knowledge on the characteristics of environmental governance as a multi-level and multi-sector phenomenon
Content: We will start with introducing the history of human dimension, the development of concepts and research. From there we move to system thinking – how does Human Dimensions of Wildlife Research act as a part of natural resource management. Finally, we learn about new approaches to sustainable natural resource management by moving from government to governance.
Pedagogical form: The course consists of lectures, self-studies and exercises

February 4-6 and 13-14 2019

This course will introduce and work with the general concepts of belief systems and the cognitive approach in Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Use. It is recommended that students following this course have followed Human Dimensions: the basics, first.

Application deadline: 31 January 2019.

Number of credits: 1.5 ECTS
Subject: Biology, Economics, Forest Management and Products
Education cycle: Third
Marking scale: Passed / Failed
Prerequisites: Admitted to a postgraduate program. The course is suitable for all graduate students in any subject with respect to Natural Resource Use. It is recommended that the students take A 10: Human Dimensions - the basics, first.
Scope: Basic course
Purpose: The aim of the course is to introduce and work with the general concepts of belief systems and the cognitive approach in Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Use.
Learning outcomes: Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• to define the role of stakeholders in wildlife management and describe possible stages of stakeholder engagement.
• to define socio-psychological concepts such as values, value orientations, attitudes and norms.
• a basic understanding to which extent these concepts can be used to predict behavior.

Content: We will start with introducing stakeholder analysis and discuss various form of stakeholder engagements in natural resource management and conservation. Most of the course will focus on understanding the cognitive hierarchy e.g. norms-values-attitude-behavioral intention and behavior. We have a strong focus on exercises to reinforce learning by the end of the week. The course is a recommended background to the ECOS-courses A12 (Conservation conflicts and stakeholders) and A13 (Communication for effective management of social-ecological systems).
Pedagogical form: The course consists of lectures, self-studies and exercises.

February 25 – March 1 2019

This course will introduce, work with, and give insight into how to effectively communicate in natural resource management from a social-ecological system perspective.

Application deadline: 22 February 2019

Number of credits: 1.5 ECTS
Subject: Biology, Economics, Forest Management and Products
Part of research school: ECOS, Ecology and society
Education cycle: Third
Marking scale: Passed / Failed
Prerequisites: Admitted to a postgraduate program. The course is suitable for all graduate students in any subject with respect to Natural Resource Use.
Scope: Basic course
Purpose: The aim of the course is to introduce, to work with, and to get insight into how to effectively communicate in natural resource management from a social-ecological system perspective.
Learning outcomes: Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• have a basic understanding of how to use communication as an effective management tool in social-ecological system management
• define "good communication" and to describe different communication channels and plans
• reflect on the role of science in sustainable resource management and conservation issues

Content: We will start by analyzing and disentangling the concept of "participation" and discuss communication strategies. Thereafter we use lectures and group assignment to work with various communication channels and activities. In the final part of the course, the focus is to develop an individual communication plan.
Pedagogical form: The course consists of lectures, self-studies, seminars and exercises.