[Conference presentation] Association of Japanese Geographers (AJG) Fall Congress

CTR researcher, Dr. Abhik Chakraborty presented papers at the Fall Congress of the Association of Japanese Geographers (AJG).

Date

30th September - 2nd October, 2016

Venue

Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan)

Report

During the Fall Congress of the Association of Japanese Geographers (AJG), I organized and chaired a panel on Socioecological Landscapes with my co-researchers. The panel was held on 1 October from 1 pm to 4 pm. Socioecological systems are complex, dynamic, non-linear systems with multiple change pathways. Change is an immanent property of the system and key to its resilience; therefore short-sighted management actions that seek to ‘govern’ systems into particular pathways have caused serious degradation of socioecological systems and resources all over the world.

Presenters in this panel presented different case studies that highlighted management problems and tentatively proposed some solutions: presentations focused on topics like the liminalization of ‘space’ in the context of salmon production grounds, ecosystem service decline in small island and mudflat areas, rural decline due to depopulation and its effect on provisioning and tourism services and fragmentation of ‘peripheral’ areas around World Heritage Sites and lack of stakeholder capability to ensure responsible tourism can act as a stewardship tool for the concerned region (my paper).

In my presentation, I also focused on the chaotic and fundamentally unpredictable nature of Socioecological systems and the need for tourism planners operating in such complex heritage-scapes to understand and appreciate such system properties. I introduced the example of several cases from across the world to argue this point.

Abhik Chakraborty

• AJG Official Website¡¡¡¡http://www.ajg.or.jp/english/web/index.html