Individuals
Dr. Bhavnani's documentary film "Nothing like Chocolate," offers a glimpse into the global chocolate industry, where there are allegations that enslaved children are used to harvest beans in Ivory Coast, which produces 40% of the world's cacao. "Nothing Like Chocolate" focuses on the Grenada Chocolate Company founded by Mott Green, as well as on an independent farmer, Nelice Stewart, who grows organic cocoa beans. Green (deceased June 2013) created a worker-owned cooperative which brings profits back to the working shareholders, who include the farmers and all factory workers at the company. The film discusses how solar power and ethical technology can create a sustainable, community-based business, and, therefore, can undermine global unethical practices.
Women Culture and Development
Dr. Chadwick’s research relates soils to ecology and earth system science. He has studied how humans prior to the Industrial Revolution and development of industrial nitrogen fixation managed their natural ecosystems and agricultural systems sustainably. He also looks at how humans impact the environment through extracting nutrients from it for agriculture and industry and then, in some cases, concentrating them or spreading them to return them to the natural environment.
Hilal Elver is a Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, part of the UN Human Rights Council. She has presented two reports to the UNHRC, one on the impact of climate change on the right to food and the other on gender and right to food. She also two book published: Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion and Reimagining Climate Change, which she co-edited. Elver is also recently working on UN Sustainable Development Goals (2030 Agenda), focusing on food systems, food security and nutrition, climate change, and human rights.
Global Distinguished Fellow at Resnick Food Law and Public Policy Program at UCLA Law School
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
Dr. Anabel Ford's archaeological field and laboratory work concentrates on the upper Belize River area and El Pilar, and has both basic and applied components. Working on the development of complexity and land use and land cover change, data have been collected on ancient Maya settlement patterns and household belongings in the 20 sq m binational protected area of the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna. Finding the major Maya center El Pilar has led to studies of conservation and development of the Maya Forest working towards the preservation of the cultural heritage in the context of the natural environment, what we call Archaeology Under the Canopy. Community and protected area development play a role in the field projects where we share research goals with citizen scientists whose agricultural strategies reduce temperature, increase biodiversity, conserve water, build fertility, and inhibit erosion. Results and interpretations of the millennial knowledge show that the methods and practices of master forest gardeners in the region are flexible and resilient while producing all the necessities of life essential to living on our planet. Celebrating master forest gardeners everywhere, UCSB's Chancellor Yang presented the prestigious Chancellors Medal to citizen scientist and Master Forest Gardner Narciso Torres in January 2023. The traditions of Indigenous Maya can promote sustainability not only in the tropics but across the world today.
As a founding member of the UCSB Climate Hazard Group, Dr. Funk’s research has focused on drought monitoring, drought prediction, and the evaluation of long-term trends in climate and food security. Recently, Dr. Funk has worked to implement improved methods of monitoring trends and predicting droughts, primarily in Sub-Sarahan African communities. This monitoring and predicting is done by using satellites to track precipitation patterns that can be linked to long-term trends. Dr. Funk’s research allows African officials to make sustainable decisions concerning community development and future food security.
Founding Member of the UCSB Climate Hazard Group (CHG) now the Climate Hazard Center (CHC)
Professor Tilman’s research focuses on the causes, consequences, and conservation of Earth’s biodiversity, and on how managed and natural ecosystems can sustainably meet human needs for food, energy, and ecosystem services. His current research explores ways to use biodiversity as a tool for biofuel production and climate stabilization through carbon sequestration. His work on sustainable agriculture and renewable energy has critically examined the full environmental, energetic and economic costs and benefits of grain crops, of current food-based biofuels, and of biofuels made from diverse mixtures of prairie grasses and other native plants growing on already-degraded lands.
Professor Walsh researches the anthropological political economy of the Mexico-US borderlands. During the last decade, he has studied the ways in which water, land, and labor have been organized to produce commodities in areas marked by aridity, especially northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. His work in this field has been documented in his publication, “Building the Borderlands.” Professor Walsh is currently writing a book about mineral springs and water cultures in Mexico. His most recent project “Groundwater and Grapes in California’s Central Coast” assesses expanding wine grape cultivation on groundwater management in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. Particular attention is given to the recent capitalization of the sector, the depletion of aquifers, and the ensuing creation and implementation of laws regulating groundwater in California. It situates the local social and environmental dimensions of the expansion of wine grape production within global markets and climate change.