This document summarizes a discussion on ecosystems, natural resources, and disaster risk reduction. It addresses lessons learned and opportunities, as well as challenges and constraints. Several speakers were listed, including experts from Virginia Tech, the UN, and emergency management organizations. The document discusses how ecosystems can affect disaster impacts and recovery, as well as how conservation policies may break down during disasters. It also questions how communities and organizations perceive the value of ecosystems in disaster risk reduction.

1. Ecosystems, Natural Resources and
DRR
IDRC Davos 2014
Integrating Science and Practice
What are
Lessons Learned and Being Learned?
Opportunities?
Challenges?
Constraints?
Role for science in decisions?
Where do we go?

2. Ecosystems, Natural Resources and
DRM
• Deborah Brosnan, Virginia Tech/Brosnan Center,
Science and Policy of Ecosystems and DRR
• Wendy Cue: Chief of Environmental Emergencies, UN
OCHA.
• Hans-Peter Plag: Professor and Director Climate
Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative Old Dominion
University
• Anamaria Bukvic: Assist. Professor Virginia Tech,
climate change adaptation
• Tim Gablehouse: President Colorado Emergency
Preparedness Partnership/ Partner Gablehouse,
Granberg LLC Colorado US

3. Ecosystems, Natural Resources and
DRR
INTEGRATION OF SCIENCE AND PRACTICE
Based on what we’ve learned
What are
Opportunities?
Challenges?
Constraints?
How is science integrated?
Where do we go?

4. Growing recognition that ecosystems and natural
resource use affect how communities experience and
recover from natural and other disasters.
Ecosystems in protection, food and shelter, and itself
a function of ecosystem health
Carefully crafted conservation policies break down
during a disaster (cutting of forests, coral mining)
Ecosystems themselves are not static, they have a
disturbance cycle, have alternative stable states. They
evolve.
How do communities, governments and response
agencies perceive the “value” of ecosystems in DRR?

5. Ecosystems, Natural Resources and
DRR
IDRC Davos 2014
Integrating Science and Practice
What are
Lessons Learned and Being Learned?
Opportunities?
Challenges?
Constraints?
Role for science in decisions?
Where do we go?