Call for Abstracts
Oil and Gas Development: Balancing Interests and Sustainability
Lessons from Continuity and Change in the 4th International Polar Year
Fairbanks, Alaska
4-7 March 2009
Abstract Submission Deadline: Saturday, 15 November 2008
For further information and to submit an abstract, please go to:
http://institute.inra.org/ipy/
In this 4th International Polar Year, the Inland Northwest Research
Alliance (INRA) is collaborating with the University of Alaska Fairbanks
to host the symposium "Lessons from Continuity and Change in the Fourth
International Polar Year," to be held 4-7 March 2009, in Fairbanks,
Alaska. Abstracts are now being accepted for the session, "Oil and Gas
Development: Balancing Interests and Sustainability."
In an era of rapid climate change, globalization, and community
transformation, the north has lessons to offer lower latitudes about
adaptive practices, measuring vulnerabilities, design of infrastructure,
and innovative policy-making. But, it also has much to learn from other
states facing similar changes. The symposium seeks to engage research on
such issues and forge new alliances among scholars, practitioners, and
stakeholders to explore, discuss, plan and prepare opportunities for
sustainable development. Activities associated with oil and gas
development reflect the suite of major interconnected transformations
that are underway (see more at: http://www.alaska.edu/ipy/north2020/main.xml).
Organizers of the "Oil and Gas Development" session invite scholars and
practitioners to share their lessons learned in this special session
focused on oil and gas. Topics for this session may include:
- Implications of environmental change for oil and gas development and
policy;
- Managing impacts in dynamic marine and terrestrial ecological systems
(values, risks and uncertainties);
- Rural communities (vulnerabilities and adaptations);
- Stakeholder participation in complex, multi-user systems;
- Integrating local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge in planning
and management (How can local knowledge contribute to continuously
improving design, regulations and decision-making?);
- Improving communication, coordination and flexibility for responsive
decision-making in a rapidly changing social and ecological
environment;
- Questions of scale and knowledge in observation from local to remote
sensing; and
- University-Community-Industry Partnerships (opportunities and
obstacles).
Other important questions to be addressed may include:
- How can researchers provide information that is of value to
decision-makers?
- What are the barriers to making the management regime more responsive
to changing conditions in the environment, in the state of information,
or in the constellation of stakeholder concerns?
- What are the frontiers for research, development and policy for
reducing environmental impacts? Are there important differences in
stakeholders' framing of risks?
Natural, social, geophysical, and policy sciences are all encouraged to
submit abstracts. Presentations may be of disciplinary or
interdisciplinary nature. Abstracts should be submitted via the
symposium website at http://institute.inra.org/ipy/ by Saturday, 15
November 2008.
Further information on the meeting scope, student poster competition,
and the details of abstract submission and acceptance can be found on
the symposium website: http://institute.inra.org/ipy/.