The use of storytelling, through evocative writing, short films, infographics, and maps, to convey global issues is increasingly popular, yet few organizations are able to invest the time and energy needed to develop emotionally compelling and visually expressive content. [Video Below]

The Population Reference Bureau and Compton Foundation’s International Fellows Program deadline is rapidly approaching on January 24. The fellowship is for students from sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America seeking to affect policy and/or improve the effectiveness of population, family planning, and reproductive health programs in the developing world. Master’s students may be awarded up to $10,000 and PhD students up to $20,000 to perform capstone/internship work or dissertation research on the intersection between reproductive health, the environment, and security.

2010 Compton/PRB Fellow Kennedy Maring, a Ugandan student at UNC Chapel Hill, spent a year researching the feasibility of integrating family planning services into HIV/AIDS programs in Masindi, Uganda, in order to address high rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Maring interviewed 182 pregnant women and 11 health providers in Masindi, and found that while more women in the area understood that HIV could be passed from mother to child than the national average, few were using available services such as HIV counseling or family planning. Her research resulted in many recommendations to improve prevention of HIV transmission and use of family planning, including: integrate family planning into HIV prevention; train more health providers; involve men in reproductive health care; encourage hospital delivery; bring services to the people; and provide free breast milk supplements.

Patrick Kipalu, an American University student from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), traveled deep into his country’s forests to interview indigenous people about their perspective on and awareness of climate change, deforestation, and mitigation programs such as the UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program (REDD). Kipalu’s research showed that weak forestry governance, widespread ignorance of forestry laws, corruption, and lack of indigenous community participation, among other challenges, will make successful implementation of REDD difficult. If the current style of forestry management in the DRC continues, REDD will only provide incentives for more corruption and deforestation, he found. In this highly centralized government process, the government, logging companies, and other powerful stakeholders will reap all the benefits without any revenue going back to benefit indigenous forest communities.

How to Apply

2011 fellowship applications are being accepted until January 24, 2011. To apply, send a completed application form, curriculum vitae, cover letter, transcript, abstract of proposed research, budget, and two letters of recommendation to Dr. Ashley Frost at afrost@prb.org. Master’s students must also provide a letter from the organization where their capstone/internship will take place, and Ph.D. students must provide proof of an approved research proposal.

For full instructions, visit the fellowship site on PRB.

Photo Credit: Adapted from “photoshot,” courtesy of flickr user hippolyte.

A recently concluded web seminar hosted by the Population Environment Research Network (PERN) engaged social scientists and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing experts to appraise the role of remote sensing data collection in population and environment research, and identify effective methods for future collaboration.

As the population-environment relationship attracts more study, scholars should consider how remote sensing data will be integrated within existing research needs, as well as how new programs and sensors will help meet future needs. Invited expert Sean Sloan of the University of Melbourne wrote that the potential societal benefits of this research are “immense, albeit largely unrealized. In my view, the principal benefit is that, for the first time, policymakers may draw upon a rich, national-scale empirical basis to develop social/agricultural/economic policy relevant to large-scale environmental issues.”

Cyberseminar participants considered several questions and topics, from determining the most appropriate sensors and instruments for the measurement of population and environment interactions, to addressing the challenges of interdisciplinary research and data interoperability. The discussion also touched on land use and land-cover change, as well how to apply the technology to specific case studies, geographic regions, PE issues, or scalar resolutions.

Demographer Jack Baker of the University of New Mexico raised a tricky issue in his contribution to the discussion of using night-time missions such as Nightsat to calculate population growth and urban sprawl. For his study of remote hunter-gatherers in rural Paraguay, Baker found that “they don’t have electricity so I don’t think they would be captured in satellite views of the night sky. It would be interesting to see how these population estimates I made perform in comparison to an estimate made using night sky imagery …in reality I would like to see lots of these sorts of comparisons before really feeling like I had a grasp on what the strengths and weaknesses of night sky approaches are,” he wrote.

PRB’s Jason Bremner pointed out that despite the high value of remote sensing to understanding human dimensions of environmental change, “the insights remain largely confined to peer-reviewed journals and the academic community. Conservation and development practitioners and policymakers don’t have access to and don’t read the peer-reviewed journals.” In addition, the increasingly technical nature of these methods will require “finding new ways to communicate what we know to those with no technical knowledge of the field,” he said. He urged the participants “to consider what you are doing to overcome the divide between what we know and what others about understand and can use to make decisions.”

Direct dialogue like this between social scientists and remote sensing experts can help establish stronger, more effective ties between two disciplines that would benefit greatly from each other’s support. Such collaboration will be increasingly necessary to address the increasingly complex challenges of population-environment connections.

Julien Katchinoff is a MA student at American University studying global environmental politics and a former intern with ECSP.

Photo Credit: Nightsat image of Osaka, Japan courtesy the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC).