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Learning About Forest Futures Under Climate Change Through Transdisciplinary Collaboration Across Traditional and Western Knowledge Systems

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Abstract

We provide an overview of a transdisciplinary project about sustainable forest management under climate change. Our project is a partnership with members of the Menominee Nation, a Tribal Nation located in northern Wisconsin, United States. We use immersive virtual experiences, translated from ecosystem model outcomes, to elicit human values about future forest conditions under alternative scenarios. Our project combines expertise across the sciences and humanities as well as across cultures and knowledge systems. Our management structure, governance, and leadership behaviors have both fostered and constrained our work and must be continuously responsive to changing group dynamics. Our project presents opportunities for substantial contributions to society, including insights and knowledge about complementary ways of knowing, skills training, and professional development, and opportunities for reflexive learning about effective transdisciplinary, translational, and transformative scientific processes.

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Acknowledgements

Our project is made possible from an award from the National Science Foundation Coupled Natural Human program (Award BCS#1617396). Reflections and recommendations herein are the responsibility of the co-authors only.

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Correspondence to Erica A. H. Smithwick .

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Smithwick, E.A.H. et al. (2019). Learning About Forest Futures Under Climate Change Through Transdisciplinary Collaboration Across Traditional and Western Knowledge Systems. In: Perz, S. (eds) Collaboration Across Boundaries for Social-Ecological Systems Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13827-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13827-1_5

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