The Oxford Fellowship
The Oxford University Fellowship supports individuals pursuing academic research in ethnoecology and traditional resource rights. The Fellow will be a Visiting Fellow, based at Linacre College, Oxford University. Collaborating departments and institutes within the University include: the Centre for Brazilian Studies, the Department of Plant Sciences, the Environmental Change Institute, Queen Elizabeth House, and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. The Oxford University Fellows receive $25,000 per year for two years.
2005-2007 - Oxford University-Based Fellow - Dr. Jan Salick
Spanish
Dr. Jan Salick is an ethnoecologist whose work has included research on manioc in Latin America, the study of indigenous Yanesha agriculture and forestry management in the Peruvian Amazon, non-timber forest products and natural forest management in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, ethnoecology of the Dusun in Borneo, and most recently Tibetan ethnobotany in the eastern Himalayas. The Tibetan Ethnoecology and Traditional Resource Rights project works with local groups to fortify traditional ecological knowledge under pressure from political domination, Han population influx, acute poverty, and global markets. The project also seeks to apply traditional ecological knowledge to pressing conservation and sustainable development problems in the region, and to support traditional resource rights.
A U.S. and Tibetan plant collector display medicinals
As a Darrell Posey Fellow based at Oxford University, Dr. Salick collaborates with a wide range of University departments and institutes to help build the field of ethnoecology. These include: the Centre for Brazilian Studies, the Department of Plant Sciences, the Environmental Change Institute, Queen Elizabeth House, the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Green College. Dr. Salick gives lectures and tutorials, holds research and other seminars, and collaborates with a range of colleagues on issues relating to ethnoecology and traditional resource rights.
For more information on Dr. Salick's work, see http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/salick.shtm
NEW: Dr. Salick and ISE member Anja Byg recently organized a symposium on ethnoecology and climate change, which they hosted with colleagues at The Oxford University Centre for the Environment's Environmental Change Institute, Oxford, UK, April 12-13, 2007. Many of the presentations given at the conference are available online. For one media outlet's coverage of the important contributions of Indigenous and traditional ethnoecological knowledge to our understandings of the situated effects of climate change, click here.
In 2005-2007 Dr. Salick:
- Began the Darrell Posey Ethnobotany Reading Group at the university with presentations by guest speakers
- Began research on Tibetan perceptions of climate change
- Gave a seminar at Queen Elizabeth House to Development Studies on "Chinese Concepts of Development and Tibetan Reality"
- A previously proposed NSF IGERT grant was accepted and therefore went to tour Tibet and meet with government and conservation groups in the area to prepare the way for incoming students
- Presented at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in St. Louis to discuss the relevance of Indigenous Knowledge to contemporary science
- Attended Society for Economic Botany (SEB) annual meeting in Thailand in early June and presented "Tibetan Land Use and Change"
- Attended the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) meeting in Southeast Asia (Kunming, China) this summer. And presented her Tibetan work on land use and change but within a symposium on that same topic with people from throughout the eastern Himalayas, which gave a great comparative regional perspective on land use: Nepal, NE India, Bhutan, Tibet, and NW Yunnan.
- Organised and hosted a symposium on ethnoecology and climate change in Oxford, UK, April 12-13, 2007.
During her time as an Oxford fellow, Dr. Salick has written six new publications:
Law, W. and J. Salick. Comparing Conservation Priorities for Useful Plants among Botanists and Tibetan Doctors. Biodiversity and Conservation.
Salick, J., A. Byg, A. Amend, B. Gunn, W. Law, H. Schmidt 2006. Tibetan Medicine Plurality. Economic Botany.
Salick, J., A. Amend, D. Anderson, K. Hoffmeister, B. Gunn and Fang Z. D. 2006. Tibetan Sacred Sites Conserve Old Growth Trees in the Eastern Himalayas. Biodiversity and Conservation.
Salick, J. 2006. To collect or to cultivate: A Conundrum. Comparative population ecology of Ipecac (Psychotria ipecacuanha), a neotropical understory herb. In DA Posey and MJ Balick (eds) Human Impacts on Amazonia: The Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Conservation and Development. Columbia University Press, pp 193-209.
Toledo, M. and J. Salick 2006. Secondary Succession and Indigenous Management in Semi-deciduous Forest Fallows of the Amazon Basin. Biotropica 38: 161-170.
Toledo, M., J. Salick, B. Loiselle, and P. Jorgensen 2005. Composicion floristica y usos de bosques secundarios en la provincia Guarayos, Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Ecologia y Conservacion Ambiental 18: 1-16.