Hopeful Globe

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

00:09

Pilvi Posio: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe. I'm Pilvi Posio from the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland, and the coordinator of the project Finnish ASEAN Academic Platforms for Sustainable Development, run by the Finnish University Network of Asian Studies. This episode, I have as my guest Dr. Segundo Joaquin Eclar Romero who is one of the collaborators of our project from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.

Dr. Romero teaches at the Development Studies Program School of Social Sciences. He is also a co-governor of Future Earth Philippines that is a multisectoral and transdisciplinary endeavor seeking to strengthen the country's sustainability and resilience through science-based solutions and linking the country with regional and global sustainability initiatives.

Welcome Dr. Romero!

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Thank you, Pilvi. Nice to be here.

1:06

Pilvi Posio: Yes. Thank you for joining us. The Philippines is a country that is highly vulnerable to the impact of the climate change, particularly to the sea level rise. With its long coastline and many low-lying areas, the country is home to many submerged island, coastal, and inland communities that are already experiencing the impacts of rising seas.

The Philippines has some 7,641 islands of which 22% are inhabited. Many of these inhabited islands are now being reclaimed by the sea. How could you describe the problem of submerged island communities and the factors that are causing it?

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Yes. Certainly, there are whole islands in Central Philippines like Batasan, Pangapasan, and Bilangbilangan that are completely submerged in about one meter of seawater all the time. There are also coastal communities adjoining Manila Bay in Bulacan and Pampanga provinces like the town of Bulacan, Calumpit, and Guagua, Lubao, Sasmuan, and Macabebe that are submerged by tidal waters from Manila Bay. And there are inland communities like Malolos that are almost always submerged in flood waters that had not receded.

Submerged islands and coastal communities became more pronounced as a problem since the world became aware of climate change. Many parts of the Philippines in Metro Manila are frequently underwater as a result of the floods that accompany the average number of 20 typhoons that hit the archipelago every year.

This has been the case over decades. These floods subside and people can live with them. However, the Bohol earthquake in Central Philippines in 2013 apparently caused some small offshore islands, Batasan, Pangapasan, as I've mentioned, to be submerged almost by one meter.

Now, it is only recently that while the submergence immediately affects these communities, this was only recently nationally noticed. These communities have been submerged for a decade already without a resolution to their problem.

Now, this situation has called attention to other areas, especially, as I've said, in the province of Bulacan near Manila Bay, where the continuous submergence covers about 10 towns.

This problem of submerged islands and communities has been linked to the increasing awareness of sea level rise, even though in the case of the Philippines, it has been more to the land sinking due to earthquakes, excessive groundwater extraction, loss of mangrove cover, and so on. That's the situation that we find here.

4:07

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's an interesting and multifaceted phenomenon you're facing also in the Philippines. It indeed seems that there are many kinds of submerged communities and several factors affecting this now very acute concern locally and globally. But how did you yourself get interested in studying this particular topic?

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Well, it's an interesting story. I got interested in studying this topic because of the startling finding that the Philippines' ecological footprint measured in global hectares per capita at 1.1 exceeded the country's capacity measured at 0.6 global hectares per capita as of several years ago. And so we have a deficit of 0.5 hectares per capita. Now this situation has gradually worsened and you won't believe that it's been about 1964 when that imbalance began. The Philippines has since been a heavy importer of rice, sugar, and fish. We don't have food sufficiency. Our land is fast becoming converted into residential and other uses to accommodate the 115 million Filipinos.

Now, as a political scientist, I have come to the belief that many causes of poor and responsive and corrupt governance in the Philippines is due in large part to the macro imbalance between our territorial resources and our population. The Philippines is an archipelago that is hopelessly in the path of typhoons, but we have not learned well to manage risks from climate hazards and live sustainably in relation to the sea. Potentially, our maritime domain can make the country more sustainable, but we have not learned to really take care of our marine environment and make it a source of sustainable livelihood. For instance, we have lost our mangroves. We have destroyed our coral reefs. We have suffered damaging oil spills, and government officials are complicit in the continuous extraction of black sand by foreign interests.

Filipinos used to think that the Philippines is rich in natural resources. That's what we were taught in school. But our former first lady once quipped that, oh, the Philippines is a rich country pretending to be poor. Now, actually, I think the situation is that we are realizing that we are a poor country pretending to be rich. We've been profligate in our use of our resources, and until now, logging and mining proliferate. So that's the situation. And we stumbled into this idea of studying these submerged islands as an indicator of the general problem.

7:00

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's a harsh topic to study, but nevertheless, despite of this kind of environmental and unfortunate sociopolitical realities, many of these communities that you've been studying, they nevertheless continue living in their submerged environments.

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Everything is interrelated.

7:16

Pilvi Posio: Yes, indeed. They are really systematic and also politically induced. So people, nevertheless, they choose or are forced to still remain in their submerged villages and towns. So how does the sea level rise affect everyday lives of these residents and why they stay in their communities? What do you think?

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Well, if you look at these communities, they are actually funny to look at. Sometimes they wade in seawater, sometimes as if they are in the beach, they sit waist high and so on. They seem to have adapted to it. Our scientists attribute sea level rise to warming temperatures, which melt the polar ice caps, causing oceans to expand.

Of course, that's what we know. Now this is happening outside the Philippines, but the Philippines is at greater risk than many most countries because of its archipelagic nature. Now in April, climate scientist Dr. Marcelino Villafuerte, and this was sent to me, said the sea level in the Philippine Sea has risen by about 12 centimeters or about 5 inches over the past two decades. According to our government climate scientists, the sea level in the Philippines is rising three times faster than the global average. And the Philippines has a coastline of 36,000 kilometers. Can you imagine that because of our islands, which is one of the longest in the world!

Some 70% of our country's municipalities and cities face the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea and other seas. Now this puts many of our coastal villages at risk. The inundation of low-lying areas may be imperceptible, but it is already happening now. Submergence of islands that we have observed are not even submerged due to sea level rise. The coastal communities are submerged when the tide comes in. They are not constantly underwater. Many communities inland are constantly underwater because of excessive extraction of groundwater, deconstruct dikes, which raise the roadways and this become like dams and they've constructed fishponds and so on.

Also the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 also shifted the water from one river basin to another, which is really another interesting thing. Now many residents in this frequently and constantly submerged communities decided to stay, learning to give up their own livelihood relating to farming. So they conduct their daily business wading in knee-deep water, they use boats. There is so much immobility, inconvenience, and of course attendant problems like lack of water and sanitation facilities. There are not much community activities like sports tournament. Even going to church requires entering the churches in boats and sometimes pictures we get are ridiculous when you see them.

Now, these communities have adapted to their water worlds and have transformed their livelihood from farming to fishing. Others have found specialized lucrative livelihoods like, I don't know whether you'll understand this, breeding fighting cocks, because fighting is one of the favorite gambling forms in the Philippines for which there is tremendous demand. And the water worlds are ideal for this because they are isolated from other communities. The cocks are very noisy.

Now, while not as dramatic as the effect of land subsidence, sea level rise is the greater long-term threat to the Philippines because it interacts with the deterioration of the land in relation to the sea. Sea level rise is a global phenomenon and the Philippines, like many Pacific countries, will be at greater risk.

11:06

Pilvi Posio: Wow. It is a really challenging situation to cope with and kind of resonates widely in the Philippines, but it's kind of good to know that there are creative adaptive efforts to adapt this situation by these communities. But I also understood that there are great disparities in income and vulnerability in the Philippines. And I kind of presume that the sea level rise must highlight these as well. So what do you think are the social and political roots and implications of this problem?

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Yeah. Well, I think overall it has something to do with the endemic poverty of the people. You know, the well-to-do families could always relocate, right? They can always move to another part of the country, but the rest of the people can only adapt to their adverse circumstances. The people cannot relocate their places, especially without assistance from the government. You have to buy land. You have to construct your house. You have to learn to live in another community. And many have title to the land that has been overtaken by the sea, and they have no way of raising money to transfer elsewhere.

Now the attachment to the land is so strong for sentimental reasons also. But you know that many OFWs, of course our overseas Filipino workers, are famous worldwide. They earn a lot of money, especially those from Pampanga. But when they come home, you know what they do? They build exactly big mansions in these submerged communities. How do you explain that? So it's really the attachment to the land.

Now the political problem stems from the lack of government strategy and policy. While there are government programs to relocate settler communities, squatters we call them, from waterways and other dangerous areas, there is no similar program to relocate communities in submerged islands and coastal communities. I should imagine these bigger communities can band together and take advantage of government programs and facilities like a community mortgage program, so they can build their own medium-rise buildings on dry land. But this requires community mobilization efforts, perhaps by concerned NGOs, and that has not yet happened, I think.

13:20

Pilvi Posio: Yeah, so it seems that this really is touching upon individual choices and attachment, as you said, but involves also finding a solution through this sort of community engagement. And we've already mentioned also that the sea level rise is a really global phenomenon and touches upon many contexts.

So in addition to this sort of community engagement, for example, what actions are taken or should be taken to solve this issue of sea level rise in the Philippines, and what do you think are the lessons to learn from them on a global scale?

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Well, the Philippines is not a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. We're too small industrially to do that, so it cannot do much in terms of the mitigation of climate change. But it is an active supporter and an avid participant in international efforts to promote the SDGs and global climate action.

The immediate action of these communities has been to raise the road above the water or raise their residences and buildings and dikes. Without an understanding of the whole problem, however, these tactical actions impede the flow of water and worsen the situation.

There is now greater awareness of the importance of, say, mangroves, and there are many efforts to rebuild them. However, many people are not aware that there is a science to seeing where to plant them and what species will survive. So meanwhile, there are a lot of knee-jerk construction of seawalls and dikes that actually prevent rivers and floodwaters to flow freely to the sea.

There are also a lot of major infrastructure projects in the Metro Manila area, such as extensive reclamation of Manila Bay. So our Manila Bay is becoming smaller because of reclamation. That is required the sourcing of filling materials from nearby provinces like Cavite. A major multi-runway airport is being planned in Bulacan province where there is much flooding. So reclamation action to raise this airport would exacerbate existing problems of submerged communities.

Well, the Philippines, you know, is not the only one. There are other countries that face similar problems, right?

15:36

Pilvi Posio: Yes, it seems that, well, everywhere this topic must involve balancing between these immediate actions and long-term policies and also urban planning practices. So it is a complex issue as you've now really vividly described.

But to wrap up these discussions, let's move our focus towards the future. So what do you think are the future prospects of these submerging communities in the Philippines and also globally?

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Well, let me reflect on your call for what are the lessons to be learned first. I think number one, we need to use foresight and futures thinking to anticipate slow onset as well as immediate adverse conditions. You know, Filipinos, they're very short-sighted and they're not thinking beyond the three-year election cycle. So we could not really have a vision of what we should be. And therefore, there is no coming together to make that vision. So I think a little bit more of foresighting and futures thinking will help.

Also, we need to build a science of culture among the people so they understand the ecological context and consequences of their action. There is a lot of technology in the lives of the people, but there is little science understanding there. We also need to capacitate local governments so they can respond promptly and effectively in helping people help themselves. You know, the problem with our national government is that it hogs most of the money and the local governments, while they are close to the people and can perhaps help more responsibly, are not able to do so.

Also, we need to use more innovation and human-centered design. Future-Earth Philippines is now thinking, why don't we have the water world villages like in Brunei, where the houses are on stilts, even the public spaces are on stilts and people are able to move around and they don't have to wait in water. Why is it that we could not make those things?

We also know that there are floating houses, there are other architectural solutions. So I think there must be more innovation in solving this kind of problem.

Finally, we need to conserve the environment. We need to reverse the deforestation, destruction of mangroves, reduction in farmland, and so on. I think this will come only if we start with the education of our youth, because we don't really have the kind of education that will give them the mentality to conserve the environment eventually.

So the prospects of the submerged communities, I think it's a little grim, they will continue to be submerged, which is why we are in Future-Earth Philippines and the National Academy of Science and Technology. We're trying to prototype a solution, the water world villages that I was telling about. And we have engineers with us, we have marine scientists, we have mangrove scientists. So we're trying to make a solution, but we are going to focus on specific communities so the results will be tangible.

We're working with the towns of the province of Pampanga, where you have these submerged villages. And who knows, we will be able to come up with a model village, and hopefully that will inspire our national government to see, aha, there is a solution after all, and that they will put money into the larger mainstreaming effort. So that hopefully is going to happen to us.

19:02

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's wonderful to hear that you've been conducting this sort of activities to innovate and also to actively work on this issue. That is indeed a complex issue to solve. And this discussion has given a really kind of wide perspective on it. And I hope all the best for your activities at the Future-Earth Philippines.

And now I would like to thank you very much, Dr. Romero, for these insights that enlightened this topic that is really a global and local concern for many people.

So thank you for joining us.

Dr. Segundo E. Romero: Yeah, my pleasure. I like talking about this submerged problem. Thank you.

19:41

Pilvi Posio: Yes, and our listeners can learn also more about this issue from your texts that you've been writing and are introduced in this introductory text of this particular episode. So I invite everybody to familiarize themselves into this topic.

And for our listeners, thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe Podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe Podcast.

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

00:08

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe. My name is Anahita Rashidfarokhi, I am a Postdoc researcher at Aalto University, and today I am joined by my colleague Professor Saija Hollmén. Professor Saija Hollmén is a professor of practice in Humanitarian Arquitecture at Aalto University Department of Arquitecture, and she is a director of a newly developed professional WiT diploma program that she will explain later. The program is funded by Educase, Educase platform, which is a pilot initiated to engage faculty, academy, students and staff in interdisciplinary efforts to build a lasting partnership for science, innovation, entrepreneurship and educational impact related to global challenges. Science research interest focus on arquitecture as a social cultural construction, as well as interdisciplinary university pedagogy. Since 2009 she has been teaching courses related to building design and global development within and outside of Aalto University. She is a co-founder of WitLAB with Matleena Muhonen and also she is a founding member of Ukumbi NGO. Their work aims at empowering disadvantaged communities. Welcome Saja.

Saija Hollmén: Thank you! Thank you for the introduction, and for having me here. And also thank you to Educase and, Global Netflag, and Turku University for organizing the podcast series.

1:40

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: So Saija, you are de Director of the new Aalto WiT program, which is 5-month transdisciplinary professional diploma program under WiT, or World in Transition, research LAB. Tell us more about the program and what inspired you to developing this initiative.

Saija Hollmén: Well, WiT is a post-Master professional diploma program which focuses on the resilience of human settlements in the Global Majority context. It is actually a continuation of a long-term education of Aalto University, and actually Finnish development cooperation as well. The roots go very far. This program is organized with partnership with international organizations and local communities, and combines scientific methodologies with work life experiences through, real life cases of humanitarian architecture, and sustainable development.

2:40

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: So, what inspired you to develop this initiative?

Saija Hollmén: Well through my own work in architectural design with vulnerable communities throughout the years, I have come to notice that, you cannot only operate only through architecture, you need other disciplines, when you are trying to create conditions for vulnerable communities, for the betterment of their living environments, and create ownership for the communities and the participants themselves, so they are able to become agents in their own lives. So we need architects, engineers, social scientists and we need, intelligent business management for the work that really expands to many, many disciplines. That´s one of the most driving principles and premises for creating this program. And in a university context we have very carefully for years tried to create the kind of environment and frameworks that can allow us to do something like this. And this program, although it is a new initiative, is based on long collaboration and line of thinking and also education at MA level studies that we have been undertaking for three decades at least.

4:00

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Saija you highlighted that the main theme of the program is shaped around this theme of humanitarian architecture. Can you tell us what humanitarian architecture means?

Saija Hollmén: Humanitarian architecture engages in designing and planning of human settlements in vulnerable conditions, from short-term emergency situations to long-term poverty alleviation. It aims at the betterment of living conditions of vulnerable communities and it can basically be described more a process than put outs, because it really aims at engaging people in becoming agents of their own lives. And it can also refer to cultural appropriate and locally adapted architectural design solutions in low-resource sectors.

4:45

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: What you believe are the current knowledge capacity gaps in the field of humanitarian architecture?

Saija Hollmén: I think the biggest capacity gap resides within the approach of architects themselves, in the role of architects. I think we suffer a little bit from a designer syndrome in which we see the ownership of the design as something very important. whereas in humanitarian architecture one has to adopt an attitude in which the ownership is not that essential. What is essential is that the community itself can build a sense of belonging in the environments that we design in collaboration with them. That we become agents and facilitators in the betterment of the living conditions of the most vulnerable. This is certainly a legacy of colonialism that still is reflected in the attitudes, we really should learn to appreciate the local, more than we do now at times. And in terms of academia, there is still a great distance between practice and research. This is what the program is actually trying to breach.

5:54

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: You mentioned that the WiT is planning to breach those gaps that you mentioned in the field, so tell us how are those shortages and gaps addressed with the help of the WiT program. What would a participant of the program achieve after finishing the diploma, and what capacities would be gained?

Saija Hollmén: I think that the biggest thing here is that, we live in a world where universities still tend to be rather far from practice, so… the driving principle of the program is that we are creating collaborations between grass root organizations that work on the field, in the humanitarian field I mean, and then then, research infrastructure and education in universities. So the program brings these together by providing opportunities for networking, for both academia and organizations, by providing a research infrastructure, and then an opportunity to engage with grass root field work for the participants. And thus gaining capacities to really prepare themselves for challenging situations on the ground, and on the other hand for organizations to create networks and connections and tailor-made contents that would be relevant for their own organizations.

7:10

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Saija you mentioned about the organizations who provide grass root case studies in Global Majority context. Tell us a bit more about the partnering organizations and their role in the WiT program.

Saija Hollmén: Partners are the key component for the WiT program, because they are providing the substance and the content for the lifelong and lifewide learning experience for participants. At the moment we have confirmed cases in Brazil, Jordan, Rwanda, Ghana and Tanzania. Up to date we have agreements with UN Habitat, which will provide a refugee camp context in Jordan, UNHCR are providing a refugee camp case in Brazil, Finn Church Aid which is Finland´s largest international aid organization, they are participating with an educational-related project in Kenya and possibly in Uganda, RLabs Tanzania” is a collaborator in Tanzania working with carbon footprint management in constructions, BRRI, the Building and Road Research Institute in Ghana, who is looking at local construction materials. And, our university partners, which are Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana and then also University of Rwanda.

8:33

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Saija, your explanation about the partners and their role in this program was very inspiring. So can you also tell us about the content and structure of the program?

Saija Hollmén: Yes, we have designed the program to be a 5-month intensive, so the people who already work in the professional field can find that opportunity easier rather than taking 2 years away from an additional Master’s program. So it is a 5-month diploma program that allows people to really get involved in tailor made education for the specific grass root cases, and also of course for the organizations, to get motivated people to work on these specific projects.

The program starts in early January with a two-month intensive, what we call, Otaniemi Camp. Otaniemi is where Aalto University campus is located in Espoo, in Finland. And then March is dedicated for fieldwork, and then in April and May there is what we called an incubation period where the projects are being developed and final projects are then presented in the end of May. The Otaniemi Camp in more detail includes, well of course, a kick-off session when we concentrate in an introduction and team building, partnering up organizations and present their work and their cases as well. The general contents include discussions of humanitarian architecture, on decolonization, on how to decolonize sustainability to be more specific, on system and resilience thinking, future studies and coaching. We have a coaching component here that we can support our partners throughout the whole 5 month in their own personal career building.

Then, according to the organizations needs we are building case-specific contents that are related to cultural heritage and humanitarian response, on sustainable-built environment and materials, on coaching as well, also on the training of trainers, in that pedagogy aspects that I referred to earlier. Then, before we go into do the fieldwork, we have all participants design a project plan, which includes a theoretical framework for their projects, a research design and a fieldwork plan. And also not to forget the ethical components that very carefully need to consider on the fieldwork, and that is also part of the academic research.

And then for the rest of the 5-month period we will continue to support the participants in collaboration with the organizations who are working more closely with the field. The final seminar in the end of May brings all the part participants back together, and in the end you get a diploma and hopefully maintain collaboration with the organizations you worked on your case, after all.

11:29

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Saija, please tell us more about the career prospects of a participant in the WiT program.

Saija Hollmén: We think we would be able to equip participants with strategic and practical knowledge and skills that are essential in working in the fields of humanitarian architecture, emergency response and sustainable development. The program develops capacities that are increasingly demanded and valued by a variety international organizations, private sector, NGOs and academic institutions that are active in the field. Some competences I could mention that you could gain, and work opportunities that you would also be able to acquire. Say in international organizations, probably about program planning, coordination, monitoring and evaluation. NGOs in the humanitarian field, would be project design and management, community capacity building. In the public sector I would assume, planning, resilience and disaster management planning. In the private sector it could be consulting and entrepreneurship, academic institutions. The program also opens up possibility for research and teaching as well. We have a component of training of trainers, of mentoring that also academic participants are very welcome to join us for in order to provide that teaching skills and mentoring skills that are required for repeating the framework and building on top of that in their own institutions as well.

13:03

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Thank you Saija for providing an overview about the program. Now let´s move to the more practical questions. So tell us who can apply to the program, and when is the application period?

Saija Hollmén: Well, WiT program belongs to Aalto´s University new lifewide learning strategy and it is part of the offerings for that framework. Anyone with a MA degree or a BA degree and three years of working experience in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, design, engineering, business, social scientists or any other related field actually, can apply. The application period starts mid-August and lasts until the end of September and the program itself starts in January. More information about the application process can be found or our website.

13:54

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: As a final question, tell our audience why anyone passionate about creating a better future should apply to the WiT program, and why this program serves as the education for the future.

Saija Hollmén: I think the future is really requiring that we look at the big picture, and that we really try to bridge academic research and universities with the needs in the practice in the societies. WiT program is providing an opportunity for organizations that work on the field on grass root level, and also individual professional, for networking, for identifying mutual interest and building long lasting relations. The organizations who work on those areas of humanitarian field, they may find it difficult for find resources and means for updating their methodologies, and widening their networks, and then on the other hand, individual professionals that possess valuable capacities already, may find it difficult to enter the field, and find the opportunities to investigate their own potential into the field.

WiT program is an opportunity to test ones boundaries and get involved with grass root case work in the humanitarian field while learning research skills and critical systems thinking. It is a platform also where individuals and organizations can find their match, while creating wider networks. It allows for research methodologies to become more widely use in grass root casework, for better informed decision making and wider understanding of local challenges. It is also a framework that helps individual professionals to benefit from academic research environments. And really an opportunity to get involved with grass root projects in the humanitarian field. And it´s an entry point for stakeholders, from both practice and academia to create connections and new knowledge on issues that are specifically related to the collaboration of organizations and also interest of the disadvantaged. So I think it has a potential to create a new standard on a baseline for collaboration between practice and academia.

16:02

Anahita Rashidfarokhi: Professor Saija Hollmén, thank you so much for joining the Hopeful Globe podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe, with me, Anahita Rashidfarokhi.

Saija Hollmén: Thank you very much!

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast.

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in

Finland.

00:13

Pilvi Posio: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe. I'm Pilvi Posio from the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland, and the coordinator of the project Finnish ASEAN Academic Platform for Sustainable Development, run by the Finnish University Network for Asian Studies.

In this episode, I have as my guest, Dr. Emmanuel Delocado, who is one of our project's collaborators from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. We'll be discussing biodiversity conservation and education, which are the themes on which Emmanuel has developed extensive expertise through his work. Emmanuel currently works as an assistant professor at the Department of Biology of the Ateneo de Manila University and as the laboratory head of the Ateneo Biodiversity Research Laboratory.

He's also active in the field of sustainability education as the program manager for sustainable development goals of the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability, and he is the executive director of ASEAN University Network on Ecological Education and Culture.

He also serves as the country manager of Sustainable Development Solutions Network Philippines. This network mobilizes scientific and technological expertise with the aid of the country's academic and research institutions to promote practical solutions for sustainable development.

Welcome Emmanuel.

Emmanuel Delocado: Hi Pilvi, thanks for having me here. How are you doing?

1:40

Pilvi Posio: Yeah, fine, thank you, and thanks for joining this Hopeful Globe episode.

Well, your research interests include freshwater biodiversity, molecular systematics, and education for sustainable development. And you've headed numerous related research projects, including the Integrative Philippine Freshwater Invertebrate Taxonomy and Ecology Project, the goals of which is to discover new species of the highly neglected yet highly diverse aquatic insects. But how did you get interested in this topic of biodiversity conservation in the first place and what makes it important?

Emmanuel Delocado: Great question. So I'm from the city of Manila, a very bustling city with dwindling green spaces. My interest in biodiversity and by extension, environment and sustainability started not with encounters, but with people.

It did not start with exposure to the great outdoors, but on several occasions, I met people who feel strongly about biodiversity. They're really passionate about it. That caught my attention. I thought to myself, it must be something of great importance that they share the great passion and even, you know, going to tears when they talk about biodiversity, especially conserving places that we rarely visit. There must be value in it that compelled them to choose this. And that proved me to read more, immerse myself more in the field. Essentially, as a young kid, you wanted to do something and maybe see that there are multiple routes. And I learned that there are many ways to go to conservation. You can be on the ground at the heart of the forest. You can be engaging local communities, the people, the indigenous peoples. You can be doing policies, lawmaking, and apparently you can be in the academe doing research and teaching.

I see that biodiversity has value, but is not valued. So perhaps I could position myself as a contributor to conservation by yes, doing research, but also exposing young minds, what they can do to make this world a better place. So here I am now, I have tried this in various capacities from informal like-minded groups to starting Facebook groups, to moderating student organizations, and now to formal teaching. And through all this, I made deliberate attempt to expose the students to biodiversity, both hearing passionate individuals talk about biodiversity, which is how I started, and to actually exposing them to the diversity outside and even within a vicinity.

Biodiversity is actually very important because biodiversity provides for us. We use the term ecosystem goods and services to refer to the benefits human populations derive from biodiversity, from habitat, biological properties, processes of ecosystems. And this concept gained popularity when the United Nations published a four-year study by more than a thousand scientists entitled the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Biodiversity really provides for us food, medicine, biological control, industrial materials, recreational harvesting, and ecotourism. There are also indirect values such as the role in water cycle, nutrient cycle, photosynthesis, pollination, among others.

But beyond use actually, biodiversity has an intrinsic value. I truly believe that it does not need to be beneficial to us humans for it to have a value. Many organisms play a silent role, but a very integral one to their ecosystems without us knowing. In all this, I see that biodiversity is actually us, and we are a part of biodiversity. When we speak of biodiversity, people think you have to go to the countryside, to the mountains, forests, rivers, oceans to see and explore biodiversity. But we as humans do not only shape biodiversity, but we ourselves are part of biodiversity. And I believe that getting into biodiversity should not be alien to us, as we are it, and biodiversity is us.

5:47

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's a wonderful approach to a notion of biodiversity. And as you said, it's often kind of associated with the wild nature beyond, for example, the urban areas. And I was really impressed about kind of how you realize your personal motivation in your work, in which you are currently working on these topics at the Ateneo Biodiversity Research Laboratory.

So in practice, could you share us a bit, what kind of work does this laboratory do?

Emmanuel Delocado: Okay, so my laboratory, the Ateneo Biodiversity Research Laboratory, envisions itself as a leading research group in freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity in Southeast Asia. And the term seems loaded, freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity. So let's break it down. Freshwater, we work with rivers, streams, waterfalls, and macroinvertebrates. So invertebrates, but visible enough to the naked eye. They're not microscopic, but they're not also the really big ones. They're not megafauna. So essentially, our work focuses on aquatic insects.

So what do we do with insects in the lab? The first part is we describe new species. Apparently, in a study in the Philippines, it's projected that we discovered only one third of aquatic beetles. And thus, we have several hundred left to discover in the Philippines and thousands in Southeast Asia. In the last few years, even in the pandemic, our lab discovered at least 100 new species of insects. Some have been accepted already as valid in science, and others are in the process of publication. We don't usually talk about insects in the public sphere. They're often ignored in discussion. But some of our discoveries have generated some social media mileage. For example, we have the father jet beetle named after our university president who's part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We have the Angat Buhay beetle from Northern Luzon Island in the Philippines named after the poverty alleviation campaign of our former vice president. And then we have a beetle named after Leonardo DiCaprio which was discovered in an expedition in Borneo by our former lab head. It's funny because Leonardo actually changed his Facebook profile picture to the beetle for like a day.

8:12

Pilvi Posio: [laugs] That's great!

Emmanuel Delocado: Yeah, yeah… so that's part of what we do, insect discovery of a new species. But aside from that, we identify the conditions, what we call the physicochemical parameters, and where they survive. So like the pH, salinity, temperature, and up until recently, light. So these different factors which help them survive, yes, knowing what they are is important.

But we have to know what are the conditions in which they can survive because without such information, we cannot proceed in identifying how to properly conserve them. We have heard of conservation groups on crocodiles, eagles, pangolins, but for insects, really, not much. So we hope to be the boots on the ground on insects because proper and sound conservation efforts can only be elucidated if we know what exists. There's no one size fits all for biodiversity.

9:06

Pilvi Posio: That's really interesting practical work to do on your ambition to promote the biodiversity in the region. But let us now move from the context of your laboratory to the general context of the Philippines and the Southeast Asian region.

As a good part of Southeast Asia where your work is centered, it's said to be a biodiversity hotspot. Can you tell us about the biodiversity hotspots? Is that a good thing or should we be somehow concerned?

Emmanuel Delocado: Okay, yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. A good part of Southeast Asia is said to be a biodiversity hotspot. There are 20 territories which were identified as hotspots in 2000 and these include the Philippines, Kuala Seya in Indonesia, Sundaland, which spans from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and South Central China, which practically is the continental Southeast Asia. So majority, if not entirety of Southeast Asia is a biodiversity hotspot.

Is that a good thing? When we hear of biodiversity hotspot, people usually assume it has high diversity, so they're amazed by it. Well, that's true actually, no? Hotspots hold a vast majority of diversity, especially plants. However, the term biodiversity hotspot is a two-pronged idea as it does not only mean high diversity but also high level of threats. These areas may have high level of biodiversity, yet this diversity is dwindling in rapid rates due to high level of human-induced threats. This is why insect discovery is a very pressing matter to us because many of them would go extinct before we actually discover them. That's why we have to ramp up our initiatives. We use an approach called integrative taxonomy so that hopefully we can speed up our inventory, speed up or accelerate the discovery of species so that we can also accelerate conservation efforts.

Do you know that in the recent Sustainable Development Report published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, it was revealed that we are not progressing as much in SDG 14 life below water and SDG 15 life on land? And of course, you can relate that to SDG 6 and 13. We're not really progressing globally, but much more so in the region. So our progress on climate and biodiversity goals are too slow, especially in developing countries in which majority of the Southeast Asia is classified. So we hope that through the initiatives, this can be changed throughout the region and we can switch the classification of a hotspot.

I guess related to that, it's very cultural in Southeast Asia that many of the cultural civilizations, indigenous groups, and even in a more rural setting depend on the environment, especially rivers. We know that the origin of civilization of life on earth started on river valley systems. For the longest time, the approach to conservation worldwide is protecting the sites. That's why we have protected areas like forests and even marine protected areas. This is a very valid approach, but especially in population-heavy, population-dense cities in Southeast Asia, where it is human-dominated, we have to consider that biodiversity is actually a source of life and living for people. So we have to enhance our diversity in human-dominated environment, yet not prevent humans from actually engaging and using, utilizing biodiversity. While it is not completely unique to Southeast Asia, that scenario of reconciliation ecology is actually very pressing in Southeast Asia.

12:55

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's really interesting. You mentioned the human impact affecting this biodiversity hotspots, but what do you think are the main challenges in biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia?

Emmanuel Delocado: Scientists usually classify the five major drivers of biodiversity loss, and these are the main challenges globally, but much more so in Southeast Asia. These five drivers of biodiversity loss and challenges to conservation are pollution, overexploitation, climate change, habitat loss, and invasive alien species. But personally, I feel that a lot of it has to do with thinking and valuing of biodiversity. Our view on the threats are myopic,

like we see pollution as, you know, there's garbage there, there's contamination there, and like, that's it.

But we have to consider why are people resorting to the usage of these, let's just say, environmentally harmful products. For example, it's quite common in the Philippines and some other Southeast Asian countries, the use of what we call sachets. I guess in comparison, you might have the big shampoo bottles, which you can buy from the grocery supermarket. But here, these are served in smaller servings, like, you know, good for a day or two, because that's what people can afford. Unfortunately, there's a major cause of pollution, of microplastic pollution in water bodies. So there's a myopic view on the threats. We do not think of it in the context of systems. I think people want to change, but we have to start with their mindset. Like there's valuing of construction of roads, like endless, countless number of roads and development projects. But we have to consider also the impact of these projects to our biodiversity.  There's a question also of valuing biodiversity.

Like many governments actually implement rules that would prevent or limit what biodiversity researchers can do. And they are primarily applying it to the commercial businesses who might abuse biodiversity. However, of course, there are unintended consequences of doing this because the research being done is also being limited. So yes, while there are known threats to diversity, I think that a lot of it has to do with change in thinking and how we value biodiversity. Because biodiversity has value, but it's not really valued as much.

15:40

Pilvi Posio: Yes, and indeed, this kind of connects closely with your interest and work on sustainability education. And it seems that many of your responsibilities concern the activities aiming to develop a generation of Southeast Asians who have a mindset and competencies for the conservation of the environment. So what role do the students or the youth play in the conservation? And how have you found them to respond to these challenges?

Emmanuel Delocado: Well, essentially, we need more boots on the ground. We need the youth to be the boots on the ground. We can unravel the often neglected, yet highly valuable diversity that we have. Students seem to be always been intrigued by the idea. And I actually applaud them. We know that biodiversity has value, and they agree with me on that. So how come we haven't considered this as a career, as an advocacy?

I guess a good part of it also is cultural. We grew up in a society where we're told that we can be doctor, lawyer, businessman, engineer, teacher, professionals, but not really scientists, not really conservation biologists. So I hope we can engage the youth, especially through our work in the ASEAN University Network on Ecological Education and Culture.

We can talk about the different volunteer opportunities and research projects that students can take part in, like all day, there's a lot of them. But I think that the role of AU and EEC is improving the mindset and competencies of the youth to be inclined to the environment, which it's not just the concrete opportunities they can sign up for, but actually that change in mindset. Because I really believe we cannot solve our problems with the same mentality, with the same thinking that we used to create them. So we hope that the youth can play a pivotal role by joining us in this.

I heard this line somewhere that sometimes what matters is not much the size of the tribe in the fight, but what matters more is the size of the fight in the tribe. I mean, it's a nice quote, but you know, we actually need more people also to bridge the gap. So we hope that the youth can join us.

15:54

Pilvi Posio: Yeah, so it seems like awareness building and engagement are really central in promotion of this conservation and education to actually move forward towards this sort of more sustainable and biodiversity-friendly future.

So to wrap up our discussion, let's move our focus to the future. So if you think about it, how should we then move forward in mainstreaming biodiversity, education and conservation, in your opinion?

Emmanuel Delocado: So moving forward, in order for us to mainstream biodiversity, education and conservation, I believe that there are five C's to consider. We need champions, communities, collaborations, competence and communication. But personally, I guess I would highlight competence and communication. I believe we need to capitalize on our own strengths in this road to conservation. Like we don't need everyone to be a biologist or environmental scientist because we actually need mobile app developers, artists, policymakers, photographers who have the competence and the passion, of course, to further conservation. So we need some holistic thinking, focusing on the idea that everything is interconnected and we can use our own passions and interests to further conservation. For the longest time, biodiversity is tackled in a rather myopic view.

So, you know, it's time for us to pull these competencies together to further conservation.

And the other one is, you know, communicate. Like we need to be creative in the use of language that engages people and that localizes the knowledge. Because by then, even with a lot of publications and conference presentations already, I think we need to understand the language of people and the local or indigenous knowledge on biodiversity so that we keep on engaging them. So there are exposure activities for students, there's citizen science for the general public, there are calls for open data science. So all of these are valuable so that we continue to localize and engage the people. But at the end of it all, no effort is small when it comes to conservation. Our actions, our individual actions, contribute to the big story, which is the story of life on Earth.

So we continue to plant the seeds that one day will grow and hopefully others do get inspired by this.

20:22

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's wonderful to hear. And indeed, this is a joint effort with small and big steps forward and sometimes backward. But I think this talk has really given kind of inspiration to actually build our awareness and knowledge on biodiversity, both conservation and the importance of education.

So thank you very much, Emmanuel, for sharing your insight and expertise about your work and motivation also. And biodiversity is indeed a very interesting and topical issues, and I'm very happy to hear about these activities that are promoting it.

And I hope all the best for your ongoing and future projects. So once again, thank you.

Emmanuel Delocado: Thank you for having me here.

21:04

Pilvi Posio: Yes. And for our listeners, thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe Podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe Podcast.

00:00

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

Luna Erica: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education sharing inspiring stories across the globe. My name is Luna Erica and I'm a research assistant at the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning, or GINTL, and today I'm joined by Jun Peng, who is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Helsinki.

She is also one of the co-authors of the recently published paper, “Dealing with Moments of Crisis Interculturally in Educational Virtual Exchanges”, a Sino-Finnish case study, which investigates reactions to and strategies to deal with moments of crisis in intercultural communication.

On top of that, together with Professor Fred Dervin, Jun has been leading the GINTL-funded global network pilot that is central to this podcast episode, and which explores understandings of interculturality.

Welcome, Jun.

Jun Peng: Thank you for your introduction, and I'm happy to be here to share our project. And also thanks to GINTL to give us support.

01:06

Luna Erica: Yeah, thank you for joining. The project you're working on is titled Practicing Interculturality “otherwise”. So how is your project doing it otherwise? So what's the new angle to the project?

Jun Peng: Okay, I think, like, you know, our project was based on our formal online exchange project, which is also funded by GINTL, between China and Finland.

And of course, my supervisor, Fred Dervin, he has done many of these kind of projects and research. So we noticed, like, when people teach about interculturality, they will promote one perspective, which usually is a Western perspective.

But through his work, through my own work, we feel like this way is actually very counterproductive. Just to have only one way of thinking about interculturality, and you know, actually interculturality is among different peoples, different views of the world.

So I think our project provides opportunities for researchers and students to share their understandings of interculturality.

And also this project is research-based, international cooperation. So based on our activities with researchers, students, we hope that we can get some scientific findings based on the projects.

And another thing for our project, I think it's kind of unique because it's a long-term virtual exchange, like students from China, Finland, and Morocco, they spent four months together with the students, with us, the researchers, the scholars.

02:48

Luna Erica: What made you decide to pick students from Finland and China, Morocco specifically?

Jun Peng: Actually, I think it's quite interesting, like, for example, from our formal project based on China and Finland, because I'm a Chinese, I have a lot of resources in China, and also taught at other universities, and also my research base is in Finland also.

And then this GINTL promotes the cooperation between Finland, China, India, and other African countries. So based on the formal one, we wanted to expand, so we invited colleagues in the university in Morocco.

So we include Asia, Europe, and Africa.

03:38

Luna Erica: Yeah, I think it's great. Like this whole range of different continents, even, you know, it really shows a different approach to other projects on interculturality, especially with such a, you know, like, only three countries, but very different countries. So yeah, I think it's a very interesting angle.

Jun Peng: And we experienced the COVID time and the pandemic, but things like online, it's very important to rethink about the ways of doing interculturality.

04:10

Luna Erica: Yeah, it's a great way to connect with different people from different places in a very effective way. So how would you define interculturality in this project?

Jun Peng: Okay, so I think maybe the question of definition is not the right definition for interculturality, because interculturality, according to Durvin's research, is a process among different elements, not only people, and especially for the interactions with people, which means everyone needs to negotiate again and again. So proposing a definition of interculturality actually is killing off interculturality and imposing a limited way of thinking about it.

Also Durvin shared in our online open event, he said every definition of interculturality both limits and opens up discussions of interculturality. So like our project, we gave the floor to our researchers, to our scholars, we gave the floor to our students to listen to different opinions of interculturality and to see how the students, they understand the concept of interculturality based on their experiences, based on their discussions among other people. For me, with my research going on, I also believe interculturality is more like a philosophy for me.

So I don't want to limit interaction only with person, because for me, like I studied in Finland, now I live in Paris, I go to museum often.

For me, this is also a way of doing intercultural communication.

It's time to think beyond that the intercultural communication is only among people from different backgrounds. That's how I think about interculturality.

05:57

Luna Erica: So even within culture, like culture as in the term that we're not supposed to use, but like within one country, for example, there are different cultures, right? But I was talking a few weeks ago at your, for the listeners, there was an introduction event a few weeks ago to this research where I attended and I talked to some of the students who were involved in the project.

And it was so fun to hear about their experiences, because they were really enthusiastic, first of all, they also learned about these, you know, like, so that interculturality exists within countries, within communities even, and that it's very easy to engage with interculturality.

But it's hard to define it exactly.

Jun Peng: I think we allow for interculturality, not allow, like, we listen to others, their understanding of interculturality, because how we understand a concept based on our knowledge, our experience, and how we understand one concept will change based on our later experience or something. So that's what I'm thinking of, definitions.

06:55

Luna Erica: Yeah, absolutely. But the process…so how would you, because you mentioned that interculturality is a process, how would you recommend listeners of this podcast, for example, to start engaging with interculturality if they're not sure how that process would start?

Jun Peng: I think, like, try to focus on the interactions. For example, even if I am alone visiting a museum, I saw the paintings and I have my understanding of the paintings, because the paintings come from some foreign painter or come from a long time ago, but I have my own understanding. For me, this is my inner process. But for the people I meet, so I think first, I don't want to put my judgment, I want to see, like, for example, when I see you, I don't want to think that, oh, you're Finnish, you have some kind of Finnish characteristic.

No, I don't think like this. I just want to feel how we're going together. And of course, this is also like intercultural, when teaching and learning. So for me, when I'm with my students, we inspire each other. You can get something different from each other.

08:03

Luna Erica: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm from the Netherlands, I'm not Finnish. So that's even, like, even in…

Jun Peng: Okay! [laughs softly]

Luna Erica: …yeah, and that's not a problem, you didn't know that, but it's like, it makes it even more interesting that we can have a discussion about interculturality without even knowing each other's background. So that's a really valuable, actually, finding.

Jun Peng: Like, I don't need to know your country, but I just want to know you.

08:23

Luna Erica: Exactly. Yeah, wonderful. So, about the project, we've talked about this a bit before, what is your favorite part of the project, or your favorite inspiring story, if you have one to tell?

Jun Peng: I think, as a researcher, the process, I contact students, and I got students' summaries, reflections, feedback. And I have to say, I was very inspired and very, very happy to see that the students, they feel something during the project. For me, it's really pleased to know that our project not only helps students better understand the concept of interculturality, as we are talking about, but also makes them more reflexive on the encounters in their daily life.

So, for example, the students wrote in their reflection, so before she was, I held the assumption that interculturality is the thing that is presented as us, other, issue by the government to tackle. So it's like a very micro level. However, after joining the project and discussing with other students, she thought, I have gotten a much larger and complex picture, and think about interculturality in my daily life more often.

So, that's the moment, every time I feel, oh, the students, I don't want to say they learn something, I would like to say they reflect something for themselves during the project.

09:54

Luna Erica: Yeah, they took something away from it, for everyday life, which is incredible. So I was wondering, while you were telling this story, how did you recruit the students for this project? Were they already engaged in interculturality somehow, or how did you find them?

Jun Peng: So actually, because we have our partners, first we need to design our project to let the students know how the project goes on, and then our partners in the partnering units, they recruit someone who are very interested in this topic.

10:25

Luna Erica: So they had an existing interest, which helps a lot, they need to be open to thinking about it. It's interesting, by the way, in this project, that you are actually doing interculturality, to put it that way, or you're engaging with interculturality while talking about it, which is super interesting.

Jun Peng: You are right. For example, I think, you know, to start a meeting in different countries, which means they need to deal with time differences, communicate with each other, like by email, or what kind of things, because people live in very different places. So, of course, it's not very easy at the beginning, because it's a process to negotiate, to find a solution.

For example, in each group, they have five, six students. So it's also like to find the perfect time for each one's individual schedule. Also like they are talking about interculturality, they are doing interculturality at the same time.

11:21

Luna Erica: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So what do you think the main lessons were for the students? You know, considering these kind of technical things that they had to deal with. So not only in terms of the project and interculturality itself, but I'm guessing this added something to it, you know, like the fact that they are interculturally engaging with each other.

Jun Peng: The first thing is to know that it's not easy. And every time when something happens, I tell myself, this is a lesson for me to know how to do intercultural communication with others. That's my prior knowledge about intercultural encounters. Like we said, it's a process to learn.

And for the main lessons, I would like to quote some students' reflections on the project. For example, one student wrote in the reflection, at first, we thought that interculturality can only be referred to when different cultures or subcultures are involved. However, by the end of the project, we realized that all encounters involve interculturality. We realized that interculturality is a journey of self-discovery and acceptance, which means the students, they change their mind doing interculturality and also feel like it's a journey of self-discovery. That is so true.

12:42

Luna Erica: Yeah, absolutely. And when I was talking to the students, again, a few weeks before this recording, they had the same setup, kind of, of how they talked about the project.

So they said, before this project, I thought of interculturality of so-and-so, you know, and I found it so funny because I could already tell that it had changed so much. And then they started naming this whole list of how much they learned.

One thing I really remember them saying is that they found out that the global South can help the global North as much as the North can help the South. I found it great that these students picked up on that in this project that is intercultural and that talks about interculturality.

Jun Peng: But when we are talking about South-North, I think different people have different understanding like what is South, what is North, and what is West, and what is East.

Luna Erica: Yeah, that's true. I'm just talking about like the academic terms that are often used. But yeah, this is another whole conversation that we can have about how to define those.

Jun Peng: Yes, yes! [laughts softly]

Luna: [also laughs] So let's keep it like a general discussion.

13:36

Luna Erica: So keeping all these, you know, like the students' lessons basically that they learned, but also what you learned in mind, what do you think would be a future direction that this projectcould help towards? Or did you get any new ideas for projects while working on this one?

What do you think the future of this looks like?

Jun Peng: Okay. For the future, I think because we already done the activities among students from different places and we collect the data. So we are planning to write a book, to publish a book to share our experience and our findings.

14:08

Luna Erica: Yeah. Any findings so far that you're willing to share? Or do you think we should just read the book?

Jun Peng: For now, we already know that students, they got something from the project or they know themselves better. They changed the way of seeing some concepts, which means concepts are always individualized. This is also very important, I think.

14:30

Luna Erica: Yeah, to help spread awareness about that. It's also, it's not just a concept. It's like a concept that you deal with every day. And there's so many misconceptions about it. So that's why, yeah, it's especially interesting. Absolutely. Yeah.

So, I'll start wrapping up from here. I just wanted to summarize again that we talked about interculturality as a process instead of as a term that can be easily defined, which it certainly is after this whole discussion. I can agree. And that this pilot specifically was a very effective way for not only the students, but also I think for you as the researchers to learn a lot more about the concept. That I think are the main lessons from the talk that we had. Would you like to add anything to that still?

Jun Peng: I'd like to thank my professor, Fred Dervin, who is always, he's the spirit…

Luna Erica: Yeah, exactly!

Jun Peng: He's the soul of the project.

Luna Erica: And he's the one who started it, right?

Jun Peng: Of course. Also, I would like to thank the support from the GINTL.

15:20

Luna Erica: Of course. No problem. Yeah, no, but we're very happy to fund projects like this, and we're even happier to hear that they're going so well. So thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us in this podcast.

Today, we've been discussing Jun Peng and Fred Dervin's GINTL-funded global network pilot on interculturality and its many practices. If you would like to read more about this project, you can reach out to Jun directly. I will add her email in the description of this podcast.If you would like to know more about the project, you can also always find it online, but do reach out because she's very happy to help.

Jun, it's been so fun to hear about your approach to this topic and about this project.So thanks very much for joining me today.

Jun Peng: Thank you for inviting me.

Luna Erica: My name is Luna Erika. Thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast.

00:00

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

Luna Erica: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education sharing inspiring stories across the globe. My name is Luna Erica, and I'm a research assistant at the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning, or GINTL for short.

I'm joined today by my colleague Deepti Bora, who also works for GINTL, as well as this episode's guest, Mirjami Jeskanen. Mirjami is an education expert, as well as the main coordinator for the Faculty of Education of a project titled Developing New Teaching and Learning Methods in India. Set up in collaboration with the Tata Steel Foundation in India, the project provides support for teachers and students in mathematics and science education.

Welcome Mirjami.

Mirjami Jeskanen : Thank you.

00:50

Luna Erica: So just to get into it right away, we'll start at the beginning. So what was the inspiration for this project? How did the idea for it arise? What did you set into motion? Where did it come from?

Mirjami Jeskanen: Well, it is a bit long story, but to explain the backgrounds of the project shortly. The project that we have is a collaboration between University of Turku and Tata Steel. Tata Steel is a huge, well-known company in India that produces steel. I think it's still currently India's largest private steel company. But besides steel production, they have started many activities for development of different areas of society, example, agriculture development, different healthcare related programs, for sure, education, just to name a few areas.

Luna Erica: I never would have thought that a steel foundation could have, you know, like worked with education.

Mirjami Jeskanen: Yeah, that was a surprise for me too, when we started the collaboration. So it was really interesting.

01:45

Luna Erica: How did the connection between you two come to be?

Mirjami Jeskanen: So they started the project already in 2015, which is many years before we jumped into the project. So I think we joined the program through the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi. So Tata Steel started the project to ensure that all the children in India get good quality education and they were looking for Finnish partners to collaborate with. Because as you know, the Finnish education system is very famous all over the world.

So the project coordinators contacted the Finnish Embassy and they contacted us. So that's how we jumped in there.

It was actually before I joined the project, so I wasn't there, but that's how it happened. Because GINTL also was established in 2021. This was when we joined the project. So we got the GINTL funding as we joined also the network. And with this GINTL funding, it was possible for us to start working in collaboration with Thousand Schools.

So the timing was perfect for us. So this is how we ended up in there. But yeah, it was a surprise for me also that Tata Steel is doing so much in many levels of society.

Luna Erica: Absolutely. Yeah.

Mirjami Jeskanen: This was one of their projects to work towards better education and it was nice that they were looking for Finnish partners and found us.

03:09

Luna Erica: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So how, like, because you're the main coordinator from the education side, how does this differ from other educational projects being done in the India region?

Mirjami Jeskanen: This project? Well, I would say that this project is like working in so many different levels.

They're not focusing only in one area, like they started identifying the out of school children and educating the villages about why education is important and how it develops the whole society.

So they started in a very concrete level.

Luna Erica: So they educated the adults in the villages or also the children about how it works?

Mirjami Jeskanen: The adults, because maybe the villages were not very aware of the importance of education. So this project area is in Odisha, which is in the eastern India area, in the rural areas where the tribal villages are.

So as you ask, what is the inspiration for this project? I think overall, it was the need for better education for the children who were not able to go to school. And this was in the rural areas.

So they started the project there to make sure that all the children in India are able to go to school. So they started educating the adults first in the villages and letting them know, hey, the kids should go to school, not to work or, you know, because the children were working in the fields and so on. So they started just like doing very concrete steps. Then they started identifying the out-of-school children, started educating them through residential and non-residential bridging schools. So they established schools for the kids. And Tata Steel actually partners with ASPIRE, an NGO that helps, for example, training the teachers working in these project schools. So they are making sure that the kids are getting also high quality teaching in those out-of-schools.

First, they make sure that the kids go to school and then they make sure that they get high quality teaching and education.

05:20

Luna Erica: Yeah. And ASPIRE, where is it based?

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Is it also in India or is it more... It's also in India. And they kind of send their experts to support the local teachers in Odisha area in these schools where they operate. They kind of have a collaboration also inside India. They work together.And we are in contact with them also.

So in addition to this, they also support the leaders of the school to strengthen the school management.

So they basically influence all of the areas in schooling. So I'm making sure that the children and their school path begins and also continues. So I think that's very important. It's kind of a holistic approach to help the villages. And we are focusing mainly in the primary and secondary levels, but we have done some activities related to early childhood education and care also.

And Tata Steel also runs different activities and programs where they offer education, like computer skills training or something like this for the other village members, not only the children.

06:28

Luna Erica: Are there any challenges related to that, if you know at all, or if you've been in contact with them about this, like the computer skills?

Mirjami Jeskanen: Well, they started sort of centers where they give an access for anyone in need for training or like just improving their own skills on their computers.

And they have kind of nice posters on the wall where all these computer things are explained. So they can come and train also themselves and look for the notes or what should I do, you know, writing word documents or something like this.

They are kind of setting up a center for the village members to come and learn different skills. And it's not only computer skills, but that's an easy example for me because I have seen those places where they have the computers on the tables and they run these.

07:19

Luna Erica: So you've also visited the places where these, you know, the teaching happens, of course, because you're part of the class.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes, actually, yeah, this is what we did last autumn. It was end of September. Our GINTL team from the Faculty of Education, we traveled to New Delhi and all the way to Odisha. And it was a long travel, but it was so enjoyable. We visited the schools. We met the teachers, the team members.

Luna Erica: So this was one and a half years after.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  It was last September. So, yeah.

07:51

Luna Erica: It must be really impressive then to see your work actually, you know, like put into action.

Mirjami Jeskanen: Yeah, it was very nice. It gave me so much more understanding about the whole Indian culture, first of all, and the facilities where we actually operate. Because what we do in collaboration with Tata Steel is that we are producing learning and teaching materials for the project schools. They are lacking of school books and good materials, and we try to kind of help with that. And then we are training the teachers. And in the beginning of this collaboration, we got feedback that the teachers are lacking skills in math and science. So these were the topics that we started with teacher training and we have been doing it online. Our trainers here in Finland and then they have a small study groups in India where they gather together and then they join the online lessons.

So it has been rich so far.

Luna Erica: Yeah, absolutely. I can imagine. Yeah.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  First, before we were able to visit there in Odisha, it was a bit hard to imagine where we are actually working. We have agreed on these activities, but how they actually function in there, it gave me so much more understanding that we were able to visit there.

09:08

Luna Erica: Yeah, I can imagine. And I think this is also a good point to introduce my colleague who is also here, Deepti. Do you want to briefly introduce yourself maybe still to the audience and then say a few words about this project and what you know about it? Or if you have any comments on what you've heard so far about it?

Deepti Bora: Yeah, I can just briefly share first about myself. Yeah, I am right now working as a project coordinator at GINTL. Other than that, with regard to the comments that Mirjami shared about the project in Odisha, I don't have any specific comments, but it was just one thing that really stood out for me was how just having a first-hand experience of the place gives you so much more perspective. And I was kind of wondering to ask her, did something change in the team's approach towards the work that they're doing? Because I'm sure with respect to developing content, developing learning materials, there's so many more nuances to it. And it's like you're getting to know the people better and their context better. So was there any shift in the approach towards the content development work?

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes, that's a good question. I think first of all, as you know, we got COVID and everything. So being able to meet face to face the people we are working with was difficult in the beginning. So we joined the program in 2021. It was 2022 that we visited the Odisha area. So just seeing the people where they work, just saying, hey, we have only meet on Zoom and now we are here together. It was one big step forward in terms of collaboration, understanding their needs and how they operate in there.

And we were able to hear from themselves, like the teachers themselves, what they are in need of. And that was especially some of the topics in math that were very difficult for them to approach or teach to the kids as they were very abstract for them also. So, yeah, I think as we were just in Finland, you know, producing the material, it didn't really touch the Indian, how would I say? Maybe we didn't here understand how or what kind of examples we should use in those, like example, the tasks for the kids, what kind of equipment they have in the schools or can we talk about this or that kind of food or something? Do they understand if I talk about this?

And it has been very helpful to work together with the Thousand Schools team members as they have been really helpful in terms of explaining, OK, the kids in these areas have never heard about this kind of concept or never seen this kind of playground or something like that. So, we have been able to develop and change our way to approach certain topics, if you understand what I mean.

Deepti Bora:  Yes.

Yeah. And then, of course, it's always a bit slow and difficult to start working together if you don't see the people face to face and you are far away from each other. And we had agreed on like teacher training and material production, but we were kind of stuck in just producing material. And it might wasn't the best in the beginning because we didn't have the understanding of these tribal villages. And when we saw those in action and I was able to take some pictures from the schools and their work that the kids were already had done.

And it helped the people here in Finland to see and understand, OK, the schools look like that. They had something total different in their mind before we actually explained. And after we came back to Finland from our travels, the collaboration just started going forward very quickly. And we started the teacher trainings as we understood, hey, these are the things they will actually need. So, it helped a lot.

13:05

Luna Erica: So, that's the part of the project that you're at right now, right, that you're doing the teacher trainings?

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes. Then we started after just beginning of this year, we started training the teachers online.

13:17

Luna Erica: So good. You mentioned before also that the collaboration with the Tata School Foundation has been so valuable. I heard you're also working with the ViLLE learning platform. Could you say a few words about what that collaboration entails?

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes, we have been collaborating with them from the beginning that we started collaborating with Tata still. So, we started also working with them. And the goal of using the ViLLE platform, it's an online platform to teach math and science topics are there also, as those were the ones the Indian teachers asked for, kind of.

Luna Erica: So, it's really based on their needs or the needs of the children.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes. So, the ViLLE platform actually already has a very rich learning materials, all like so many different kind of activities to do. Digital materials having games also in it. So, it's kind of a fun way to also learn maths, like playing games. And maybe it's a bit different than what the schools are used to. So, yeah.

14:15

Luna Erica: But it works well, even though it's different from what they're used to or so far.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Of course, it means that the local teachers in India have to learn to use the platform. So, we are working together with the Research Institute for Learning Analytics that has the ViLLE platform and they have an Indian partner who is training currently the Indian teachers how to use ViLLE platform and like in everyday use. And they are using this in some of the schools.

So, this is something that actually also was very good to visit the area because we had agreed that we will produce learning and teaching material and putting it to ViLLE also. And the schools would be utilizing ViLLE there. But when we were in India, we saw that not all of the schools had computers. They were not able to access digital tools. So, the ViLLE team members, they identified those schools inside the Thousand Schools program, which had computers in their schools. They started working together with those ones. They chose a few of them. As I have now understood that it's not any more Thousand Schools. It's actually 6,600 schools that the whole project has already impacted. So, you can understand that we are not able to use the ViLLE in all of those schools or even we are not able to train all of the teachers at the moment because, you know, you start somewhere.

So, ViLLE is working with those schools that actually are able to use digital tools.

But we started working in the way that the team in India and the teachers in India, they were giving us a list of topics that they would need the material of. And that's based on the Indian Curriculum and it was given us by Tata Steel and we started developing material for those topics.

And ViLLE team is producing material for some of those topics and putting them, uploading them to ViLLE platform. And we have another team here in the Department of Teacher Education that is producing material that doesn't need digital tools or doesn't need computers.

Maybe, you know, almost everywhere in the world, someone has a smartphone. So, at least the teachers in these schools have a smartphone to use, but not the kids. Maybe they're like from a poor family and are not able to access such things. So, they don't have their own mobile phones, but the teacher can show some videos example for them.

16:56

Luna Erica: Yeah. So, it's like a matter of kind of learning how to do it better with the resources you have, I guess.

Mirjami Jeskanen:   Yes, that is true. So, we are doing some material that includes maybe a links to video or like something like go and Google this and the kids will do that if that is possible. But yeah, so that's how we operate with the ViLLE platform. And as it has already a lot of different materials for teaching and learning and doing activities in ViLLE about maths and those games and everything. And one very positive aspect of that is that the exercises they have in there are very easily tailored to meet the individual needs of the children.

Because what we understood is that in one classroom, the teacher can have children from very different backgrounds and with different level of skills. So, using ViLLE and those exercises, they can maybe make some easier exercises or easier games, or then they can do the a bit difficult ones based on what they are able to do. And the teacher doesn't have to, you know, plan everything themselves, but using the ViLLE. So, it's very nice wherever it works. So, yes.

18:14

Luna Erica: Yeah, it is just, you know, like adapting to the situation at hand. So, what has been the most rewarding or inspiring element of this project for you?

Mirjami Jeskanen:  I have to say that it's a really joy to work with the Indian partners, as I just told you that I was able to visit there in Odisha and seeing the kids, their joy and their smiles and how openly they, you know, took us to dance with them and they were showing their work and they wanted to discuss about future and everything.

So, it was very, like, touching moment to see the kids that we are working for their future. So, it was very touching moment for me to be there and meet them. And of course, the teachers, I really enjoyed the online sessions that I just mentioned that we trained them online.

And of course, first, it was very nervous for all of us. I think we were kind of, you know, we didn't know how to work together or how the online sessions will work. But now that we have done those a few times already and we know each other, so it's very, like, warm atmosphere that we have in there. And it feels like we are really in this together. We are colleagues and we are working towards the education or better education. So, I really enjoy those.

And I'm always waiting, OK, we have teaching next week. So, I'm not teaching there. I'm just setting up the meetings and participating in the trainings.And we have a teacher there, training the local teachers. So, it's a very joyful thing to do.

19:41

Luna Erica: Yeah, it must be even nicer now that you've been there in person and you've seen how well it's going.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes. And now we know each other already and we're waiting for each other through the cameras and everything. So, it's a very friendly atmosphere and I really enjoy that. It gives me, you know, so much energy. And they are so motivated. They really want to learn about these things. They are asking, like, can you train this and that topic? And now that we are doing this, they ask so many questions, so good questions. They are so engaged.

Luna Erica: And there's, like, mutual learning. You also learn from them.

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Yes, I have learned so much. I'm like, OK, I'm so full of energy after those meetings. I'm like, OK, you know, I'm becoming a better person. Of course, there's somewhere I'm also learning about math and science, which is wonderful for me also. But yeah.

20:30

Luna Erica: From here on out, how do you think the project would create change in the future based on all of this that you've learned from it, you know?

Mirjami Jeskanen:  Well, I believe this project has done great impact already in the areas where it operates. As the data still is bringing awareness to the communities, example, like children rights and ending child labor and ending child marriages and things like this.

So the whole villages are engaged to the education part now. They now understand how important it is for the children to go to school. And we are making sure that they get a good quality education also, like by training the teachers and so on.

And I know that all the colleagues in India, they really have a passion in creating, like, better life for the kids, better life for the villages, better schools, better communities and future.

And I know it started the whole project in two states, like Odisha and Jharkhand. And now it has already started in a couple of other states already. So it's also like expanding in that level.

So I think that tells that it's truly has been impactful.

21:41

Luna Erica: Yeah, it sounds like it's been hands on and impactful. With that said as well, I'm going to wrap up the session and summarize some of the main takeaways as to why it's so impactful.

So in this session, we talked about the project that is partly led by Mirjami Jeskanen. We learned about the Tata Steel Foundation and how much impact it has in India at this moment already and how much more it's hoping to have in educating out of school children and working together with ASPIRE and their experts in India.

At this moment, Mirjami 's project is training the teachers also together with the Vila platform. And the project has also seen the great value of visiting the places that you work with and seeing what kind of impact is already happening, because sometimes it's hard to see from far away. So change has already been made, but more is coming now that everybody's engaged. And that's really great to hear.

Mirjami, thank you so much for having this discussion with us today. I definitely learned a lot and I'm sure our listeners did as well.

Mirjami Jeskanen: Thank you for inviting me.

Luna Erica: Yeah, no, of course. It was really, really nice to have you here and Deepti as well. Thank you for your contribution.

Deepti Bora: Thank you. Yeah, I learned a lot as well. Thank you, Mirjami.

22:44

Luna Erica: In this episode, I was joined by Mirjami Jeskanen and Deepti Bora to discuss Mirjami 's education-based, gentle-funded project on developing new teaching and learning methods in India. If you would like to read more about this project, you can reach out to Mirjami via email.

We'll add her email address to the description section of this podcast, so you can see it down below.

Mirjami, Deepti, thank you very much again for joining me today to have this super interesting conversation. It's been really great hearing more about the project and about the implications. And I'm very, very curious to see what will happen next.

To wrap it up, my name is Luna Erika. Thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe Podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe Podcast.

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

00:08

Pilvi Posio : Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe.

I'm Pilvi Posio from the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland, and the coordinator of the project Finnish ASEAN Academic Platform for Sustainable Development by the Finnish University Network of Asian Studies.

In this episode, we will discuss urban biodiversity and citizen science with Abigail Favis, one of our project's collaborators from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. Abby is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Science and has been involved in environmental management and sustainability work for the Ateneo de Manila since 2009.

She is currently the program manager for campus sustainability at the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability, and her research interests include sustainable consumption, as well as urban biodiversity and green spaces.

Welcome Abby.

Abigail Favis: Hi, Pilvi. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

1:10

Pilvi Posio: Yes, thank you for joining us.

Last year, our project had the pleasure of visiting you at Ateneo de Manila campus in Metro Manila area, and you introduced your activities relating to the promotion of biodiversity at the campus area, including the Ateneo Wild Project you co-founded together with Trinket Constantino. How did you get interested in urban biodiversity in the first place, and how the Ateneo Wild Project started?

1:33

Abigail Favis: Well, my interest in biodiversity started very young. I had the privilege of growing up surrounded by nature spaces, and my grandmother and my parents encouraged spending time outdoors and exploring.

So when I got to the Ateneo, I was very happy to meet Trinket as a co-faculty member because she shares the same interests, and we started organizing campus birdwatching activities way back in 2011. And back then, we were doing it just for fun, because for us, it was a form of self-care, a sort of stress relief from work, and we enjoyed bringing other people around our campus nature spaces.

Then in 2017, we had the opportunity to establish more formally the Ateneo Wild through a grant from the university, and this gave us the resources to buy equipment like binoculars and implement other nature-based activities like exhibits and the creation of nature education materials. And so our goals evolved.

Now we want to involve more community members to observe campus biodiversity and to help us document it through citizen science, and in doing so, spend more time outdoors, which is one of our main advocacies. And since we wanted more young people involved in our work, we thought of using social media as a platform. And our first post on Facebook and Instagram was on August 31st, 2018. So we've been doing this for almost five years.

3:00

Pilvi Posio: Well, that sounds really an intriguing project that sprouts from your own interest and must serve your own wellbeing, as you said.

But you mentioned also involving community members and that citizen science is central in your project. So what is citizen science and how do you practice it in your project?

Abigail Favis: So collecting data on urban biodiversity is exciting, but also daunting, even for a limited space like our campus. Our campus is 86 hectares big, and only 40% of that is built up space. So there is a lot of ground to cover in terms of biodiversity monitoring. Also because Trinket and I do this in our spare time, we need help to document campus wildlife at all hours of the day so we can gather observations not just across space, but also in time. So we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to collaborate as a community in gathering important information.

So this engagement of non-scientists or the general public in the scientific process of collecting biodiversity information is called citizen science. So the community documents the wildlife they see and they report it to us so we can add it to our biodiversity inventory. And we like this approach a lot because this is not just an advantage for the scientific endeavor, it's also a good way to encourage more people to spend time outdoors, to be more observant, and to learn more about the wonderful natural world that can exist even in cities.

So for the Ateneo Wild, our citizen scientists have made many valuable contributions. Most of our most popular posts on social media are contributions from the community. They help us observe species that we don't normally see even during the day. For example, one of the faculty members sent in his documentation of a 10-foot-long reticulated python that he came across after doing overtime at work and going home almost at midnight. So obviously Trinket and I weren't on campus anymore at that time and we wouldn't have had the chance to see that creature if this co-faculty did not send us his documentation. More importantly, especially during the quarantine when the campus was on lockdown, so Trinket and I couldn't be on campus all the time.

So the people who were left on campus, we have some residents on campus, even the Jesuit priest would send us their documentation of wildlife so they helped us monitor even during the quarantine.

And by the way, while Trinket and I are from the Department of Biology and the Department of Environmental Science, we ourselves do not have formal training in botany, zoology or taxonomy. So Trinket's background is in molecular biology and mine is in environmental sanitation. So we ourselves are citizen scientists in terms of biodiversity conservation.

5:44

Pilvi Posio: That's a wonderful collaborative effort to embrace kind of the nature surrounding you at the Ateneo, the campus that was indeed very green in comparison to many other urban areas that we encountered in the Metro Manila area.

When moving more generally in the Metro Manila area or in the Philippines, the urban areas, what do you think are the most challenging issues related to urban biodiversity?

Abigail Favis : We're very privileged to work and study in our campus, which is one of the last remaining green corridors in the city. But elsewhere in Metro Manila, the biggest challenge, of course, is urbanization and the urban sprawl. So the development of land and land use change, removing existing natural ecosystems. In fact, in Metro Manila, only 20% or less of the total land area remains unbuilt. So this is one of the biggest challenges, of course, how do you balance development with protecting ecosystems and the wildlife that they contain?

So we're very lucky that Quezon City, where our campus is located, is where most of Metro Manila's green spaces are. And because we live so close together with urban biodiversity, our activities also pose a threat or a risk to them. So our infrastructure, like roads and buildings, encroach on their natural habitats, the resulting air and water pollution, solid waste, even light and noise pollution from our activities will also affect these ecosystems and the creatures living within them.

And something that's not talked about often, but is also a very big concern is, of course, conflicts with domesticated animals or the pets that we have. Because pets, especially cats, if they're not cared for properly, are also predators of other wildlife in the city. So these are just some examples of the challenges that we have for urban biodiversity.

But more fundamentally, I think it's also the lack of appreciation for the ecosystem services provided by urban nature spaces. For example, urban nature spaces add life and beauty to the city and contribute greatly to human health and wellbeing by filtering air pollution, regulating microclimate, and even providing spaces for recreation and community building.

But for some people, urban biodiversity and green spaces are purely ornamental, so they don't embrace the real value of these spaces. That's one of the more fundamental challenges that we face.

8:08

Pilvi Posio: Yes, indeed. You put it quite well, like how to balance urban biodiversity and appreciation of green spaces, as well as the necessary development, which I understood that in the Metro Manila area, the urban development is not well planned, or at least it doesn't include appreciation for these green spaces.

But you, nevertheless, have managed to create many positive impacts despite of these challenges. So what are the main outcomes of your activities and how do you feel that the community has responded to the Ateneo Wild?

Abigail Favis: Well, Trinket and I would like to think that the response has been very good and actually we're quite surprised and we're very inspired by the enthusiasm showed by the Ateneo community to our work. And since we started the Ateneo Wild, our campus biodiversity inventory has grown. We have lists for birds on campus, 41 of them are resident non-endemics, 21 are endemics, 21 are migrants, and we have records also of escaped pets that come to the campus. We have over 86 native tree species and the list just keeps on growing.

And this data is very important in crafting effective and evidence-based policies and management approaches for urban biodiversity and conservation on campus. Our goal is to influence policies on how our campus grounds are managed and what decisions are being made.

And we're very encouraged by some outcomes, for example, wildlife welfare is now part of decision-making. For example, if in the past when there would be a beehive or a wasp's nest, the reaction would be to remove it immediately, which is not very good for our pollinators. But now we've been able to influence a different approach. So instead of removing the beehive or the wasp's nest, now we have signs that we post in the area warning the people, oh, there's a beehive in this area, please do not come too close, or please do not aggravate the bees or the wasps, because if we leave them alone, they will leave us alone as well.

Another example in having wildlife welfare as part of decision-making is in one of the buildings on campus, we have already been able to attach decals on the glass windows, so stickers on the glass windows, because in Ateneo, we're fond of big glass windows, which unfortunately reflect the trees and the sky so well that birds sometimes fly into them thinking they're flying into open space.

So the attachment of these decals will break up the reflection and help inform the birds that over here, you have to avoid this area.

Another nice thing that we really appreciate in our staff is there is now a quick response to wildlife issues, like for example, if we find traps for monitor lizards, as soon as we report it, there's immediately a response to remove the traps and to launch an investigation and to communicate with whomever was responsible that the wildlife on campus is protected and trapping them or hunting them is not allowed.

And there's also now a bigger appreciation for protecting wild spaces, as opposed to converting them into manicured lawns and gardens, because sometimes wildlife need these wild areas.

This is where their habitat is, they are protected by all this undergrowth and all the vines and the grasses that are in the area. But in the past, the administration would prefer cleaner, more controlled green spaces. But now there are areas that we really set aside to stay overgrown and not manicured.

And there's also a stronger advocacy for protecting native species. So now on campus, we can only plant native tree species. We cannot plant any more invasive or alien species.

One of the biggest wins that Trinket and I continue to celebrate is now there's more integration of nature-based activities in our curriculum, especially for young students. So they're using the campus as a laboratory for nature-based education, like nature walks or gardening or looking for wildlife.

Our social media accounts have also remained active. On Facebook, we have over 13,000 followers, and on Instagram, we have over 3,700 followers. And we're so lucky to have a supportive network of friends, even in other universities. For example, the University of the Philippines also created their own social media account called the UP Wild, and the University of Santo Tomas also now has the USP Wild.

So our network of wild campuses is growing as well.

12:44

Pilvi Posio: Wow, these are really great examples on how this sort of very practical measures from the stickers, window stickers, to biodiversity education kind of resonates also in kind of greater context. So, well, I really congratulate you on this.

And as I said, it was really refreshing to visit your campus area. But I'd say that biodiversity is not an issue in Metro Manila or in the Philippines alone, but it touches all urban environments and is also a topical issue in Finland as well. So what do you think are the main lessons to learn from your project? And what are the future prospects of urban biodiversity promotion in general?

Abigail Favis: Well, one of the insights that Trinket and I love so much is discovering that there really is a lot of interest in urban biodiversity, especially in young people. So we thought it would just be the two of us enjoying what we do, but we're happily encouraged by the response that we've gotten from the community.

In Metro Manila, like in many urban areas all over the world, our kids are growing up in highly developed environments, but showing them that there is so much diversity, so much nature even in the city is always met with awe and wonder. And it's a favorite of ours when we take groups on our campus nature walks to hear their expressions of, oh, that's great, or wow, or I never knew we had that on campus. That's very encouraging, and we'd like to think that this encourages them to, even in other places in the city, keep an eye out for nature and the wildlife that live beside us and with us.

And another insight is citizen science has been proven to be a great method, not just for data collection, but also for community engagement. It's a great way to encourage people to spend time outdoors and form a stronger bond with nature because literature shows that this bond is an important predictor for the formation of sustainable behavior. So we're trying to bring the biophilia back that has been lost in some of our urban children.

And after the pandemic, I was surprised at the growing interest in protecting remaining green spaces in the city and the growing recognition of the importance of sustainable and livable environments. Now we have a better appreciation for the outdoors. We used to take it for granted, but once the lockdown started, we were all raring to go outside and be outside.

So we want to be in the presence of nature and now we recognize how positively it affects not just our physical health, but also our well-being.

15:16

Pilvi Posio: Yes.

And so it seems that awareness building and engagement seem to be the central means to promote this sort of biodiversity in urban areas. I think that's something that can be kind of applied also to many various other contexts.

So it's really inspiring to the listeners, I hope. But well, the future is ahead.

So how do you plan to continue the Ateneo the Wild?

Abigail Favis : Well, we don't think about stopping. So we're continuing the Ateneo Wild and we hope to be able to continue it for many more years.

And we, of course, want to enhance our activities. So right now, after the quarantine, we just come back to our regular schedule of having monthly nature walks.

But we also want to branch out into other activities like preparing, maybe writing more books and other materials on nature education and also providing more activities, more fun activities and more creative activities and collaborating with other departments. So we're trying to collaborate with the humanities on more creative outputs, for example, more drawing, more visual arts, even photography. And we want to incorporate that into the experience because we want each of these nature experiences to be unique and to be different so we can maintain the interest and have them be more excited about spending time outdoors.

Even in our little corner of the city, our campus is very small compared to the rest of the city, but we cannot take it for granted. So we're just so lucky to have this campus and to be working in it.

17:02

Pilvi Posio: Well, that's certainly something that I hope all the best for your future work as it's important to appreciate these urban green areas that are not self-evident spaces.

And it's also really great to hear that there is a rising interest in urban biodiversity in Manila and of course elsewhere as well. And your project is indeed a wonderful contribution to that, that will hopefully also provide inspiration to our listeners, who I also invite to take a look on the project's social media that is linked in the introduction of this episode.

So to wrap up, I would like to warmly thank you, Abby, for sharing these insights and I really wish successful continuation for your work also in the future.

Abigail Favis: Thank you very much for having me, Pilvi. Have a great day.

17:51

Pilvi Posio: Thank you.

And also for our listeners, thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast.

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

Pilvi Posio: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe. I'm Pilvi Posio from the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. I'm working as a senior researcher in the project MOOCs for Sustainability: Empowering Global Campuses. The project is coordinated by the Finnish University Network of Asian Studies, and it gathers partner universities from Asia, Africa, and Europe to develop a massive open online course to share tools and inspiration on sustainable campus development.

In today's episode, we'll discuss the sustainability measures developed and taken by Universitas Indonesia in Depok, Indonesia. Dr. Mustika Sari from the Department of Civil Engineering, a researcher at the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Development, will share insights and experiences on sustainable campus development related particularly to the UI GreenMetric ranking system.

Welcome, Mustika.

Dr. Mustika Sari: Thank you for having me, Pilvi. It's a pleasure to join this episode and share our experiences at Universitas Indonesia, specifically in the area of sustainability.

Pilvi Posio:  Thank you for joining us. You are participating in the development of our joint Sustainable Campus MOOC course as the representative of Universitas Indonesia. This has been an interesting opportunity to learn from challenges, prospects, and practical solutions across different campuses worldwide. Universitas Indonesia’s flagship in operationalizing sustainability is the UI GreenMetric ranking system, which has had a wide global impact. Could you briefly explain what UI GreenMetric is and how it was initiated by Universitas Indonesia?

Dr. Mustika Sari: Yes, UI GreenMetric is a global university ranking system developed by Universitas Indonesia in 2010, aiming to assess and promote sustainability within higher education institutions. It was initiated with the vision of creating a global benchmark that encourages universities to adopt sustainable practices and contribute to environmental stewardship.

As the first of its kind, this ranking system evaluates sustainability performance in several areas, including energy, waste, water, transportation, and education. A key objective of UI GreenMetric is to provide university leaders with practical tools to operationalize sustainability on their campuses. We hope it can help universities set actionable goals and assess their progress over time.

Starting with 95 universities from 35 countries, the ranking now includes over 1,100 universities from 84 countries, which demonstrates a global commitment to sustainable practices. Through this ranking framework, UI GreenMetric also encourages international collaboration between institutions to share best practices and align with global sustainability efforts, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Pilvi Posio: That’s ambitious and an extensive tool addressing important issues at a very practical level, and to make important action plans on the campus area. You mentioned that one of the main aims of UI GreenMetric is to offer tools to university leaders to operationalize sustainability on their campuses. Could you share some key sustainability initiatives that Universitas Indonesia itself has implemented on its campus as a part of the GreenMetric goals, along with specific outcomes or success examples achieved over the years?

Dr. Mustika Sari: Universitas Indonesia has implemented several key initiatives to support GreenMetric goals. We focus on making our campus more sustainable. One of our major achievements is maintaining over 50% of the campus as green space. This includes forests, lakes, and areas supporting biodiversity, which also serve as natural laboratories for students and researchers.

In terms of energy management, we have installed solar panels on several buildings and introduced smart technologies to reduce energy consumption in buildings, including some buildings in the Faculty of Engineering. We also have a waste management program that sorts waste into categories—organic, recyclable, and residual—and operates a biomass power plant that processes 2 tons of waste daily, generating electricity and reducing our environmental impact.

These efforts have helped Universitas Indonesia consistently rank among the top in the GreenMetric rankings. In 2023, we ranked 24th globally and first in Indonesia. Beyond rankings, our efforts in waste reduction, water conservation, and green transportation have led to significant reductions in resource use and carbon emissions.

Pilvi Posio: These are impressive achievements! Facility management, environmental solutions, and infrastructure truly have a significant impact on campus sustainability. Of course, the core functions of universities also include teaching and research. I understand that Universitas Indonesia integrates sustainability into its curriculum and research. Could you tell us how this is done and why it is essential for the university's broader mission?

Dr. Mustika Sari: Universitas Indonesia integrates sustainability into both curriculum and research activities to equip students and faculty with the knowledge and skills needed to address today's environmental challenges. We offer a wide range of courses focused on environmental science, sustainable engineering, climate change, and resource management. These courses provide students with a foundation in sustainability principles and encourage them to apply their knowledge.

On the research front, Universitas Indonesia supports faculty and students in conducting sustainability-related projects, resulting in hundreds of publications each year on topics like climate change, energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and green technology. Our interdisciplinary approach allows students and researchers from diverse backgrounds to collaborate on innovative solutions to environmental issues, whether they are in engineering, public health, urban planning, and social sciences.

Pilvi Posio: It sounds like a comprehensive approach to sustainability. Achieving such goals and success stories isn't easy. The road to a sustainable campus can be long and challenging, with many obstacles to tackle. What have been the main challenges Universitas Indonesia has faced on this journey to becoming a more sustainable campus, and how have you addressed them?

Dr. Mustika Sari: One main challenge we faced was shifting mindsets across the campus community. Early on, the awareness of sustainability and the reasons for adopting sustainable practices was low. To address this, we implemented awareness campaigns and hosted sustainability-focused events to gradually build a culture of environmental responsibility.

Another challenge was managing the financial requirements of sustainability initiatives. As we all know, projects like renewable energy installations, waste infrastructure improvements, and conservation technology require considerable investment. To overcome this, we prioritized initiatives based on their potential for long-term impact and cost savings, focusing initially on projects like solar panels, smart lighting, and water recycling.

Finally, as the campus expanded, we also had to ensure that new developments met green standards, like requiring new buildings to have a minimum of eight floors to optimize sustainability and environmental impact. These measures have allowed Universitas Indonesia to make consistent progress toward becoming a sustainable campus.

Pilvi Posio: You mentioned changing mindsets and engaging the campus community as a challenge, and you provided examples of activities to tackle this. Do you have any other examples on how Universitas Indonesia aims to encourage its campus community to participate in this sustainability initiative, ranging from students all the way to staff members?

Dr. Mustika Sari: Yes, we encourage everyone on campus to participate in sustainability through accessible initiatives for students, faculty, and staff. We have several student-led environmental groups that organize campaigns, workshops, and events focused on waste reduction, energy conservation, and biodiversity. To promote sustainable transportation, we introduced electric scooters and improved pedestrian pathways to support greener mobility across campus.

Universitas Indonesia also encourages students to focus their research and theses on sustainability topics, exploring innovative solutions to these challenges. Furthermore, we host workshops, lectures, and events like Earth Day to keep sustainability part of daily campus life and motivate the community to support our goals.

Pilvi Posio: This is an impressive set of initiatives encouraging engagement at all levels, from mobility solutions to awareness-building. It paints a bright picture for the future, with meaningful actions for sustainability. To wrap up, could you share Universitas Indonesia's future plans for sustainability initiatives and how they align with global goals like the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

Dr. Mustika Sari: Our future plans focus on expanding renewable energy use, reducing waste, and enhancing water conservation, aligning with UN SDGs on clean energy, water, and climate action. We plan to increase solar panel installations and implement more recycling and water-saving systems to further cut down our environmental impact. Additionally, we aim to foster sustainability-related research and education programs to prepare future leaders in environmental stewardship, supporting the SDG on quality education.

Through these initiatives, we aim not only to uphold our position in the UI GreenMetric but also to serve as a global model for sustainable campus practices globally.

Pilvi Posio: I wish you all the best with these future initiatives! These experiences from Universitas Indonesia’s GreenMetrics offer excellent examples of how sustainability can be operationalized with a global impact. I hope this discussion has been inspiring and encourages our listeners to promote campus sustainability and become familiar with the UI GreenMetric, enhancing their universities' roles in sustainability work.

Thank you very much, Mustika, for sharing these insights with us and joining this podcast episode.

Dr. Mustika Sari: Thank you for having me here, Pilvi. It’s been a pleasure to share Universitas Indonesia's journey in promoting sustainability through the UI GreenMetric and our campus sustainability initiatives. I hope that through this podcast, we can learn together and inspire each other to take steps toward sustainability in our own universities.

Pilvi Posio: Yes, thank you! It’s a pleasure to work with you on this joint project. And to our listeners, thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You’ve been listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast.

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

Pilvi Posio: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between Institutes of Higher Education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe. I'm Pilvi Posio from the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. I'm working as a senior researcher in the project MOOC for Sustainability: Empowering Global Campuses. The project is coordinated by the Finnish University Network of Asian Studies, and it gathers partner universities from Asia, Africa, and Europe to develop a massive open online course to share tools and inspiration on sustainable campus development.

In this episode, we'll discuss students' voices and the sustainability questions on campus development by drawing from the lessons from Lagos State University in Nigeria with one of our project's collaborators, Dr. Abdul-Ghafar Tobi Oshodi. Tobi currently works as a teacher and researcher at the Department of Political Science at the Lagos State University. He's focusing on socio-economic challenges and also on the role of China in Africa.

Welcome, Tobi.

Dr. Oshodi: Thank you, Pilvi. Great to be here.

Pilvi Posio: So, we are currently collaborating on the project that develops an open-access educational content on campus sustainability, and it has really been an interesting journey to learn about sustainability challenges and prospects in different contexts. How would you describe, from your perspective, the relation of university and sustainability?

Dr. Oshodi: Well, thank you for the question. For me, I think, generally speaking, the university is that space where teaching, research, and community engagement actually happens. So, from that simple understanding of the role of the university, it means that university, logically, is elemental to sustainability. But it goes beyond that. Because the university builds the next generation of leaders, and, of course, prepares them for leadership at the national, sub-national, and global level. It is against this background that I think the university is important for the sustainability question.

Pilvi Posio: Yes, indeed, the kind of main task of a university is to research, but also to teach, and as you highlight, also the next generation is important in this journey towards a more sustainable future. And you, yourself, are focusing in particular on the student's role in sustainability. So, why do you think the students are important elements in the engagement of the sustainability issue?

Dr. Oshodi: Well, maybe I should start by just giving a simplistic depiction of what the university represents. The university is that space where you have broadly three chambers. In the first chamber, you have the academic staff—the teaching staff, the lecturers, the professors. The second chamber, you have the non-teaching constituents—people in administrative roles and those tasked with administrative responsibilities. But in the third chamber, you have students. And in many universities, you actually hear about student union government, so students are also critical stakeholders in the university system.

Having said that, as I already mentioned in my first response, the university is that space where the next generation of leaders are taught. But beyond teaching, students also have a voice. They are active, they are motivated, they have convictions that relate to the sustainability question. And if you look at any society—a society where the majority of students consider sustainability to be important—that gives you a glimpse, a picture of what the future looks like. Conversely, if you have a society where the student population, to a very large extent, is disconnected from the sustainability question, it gives you an idea of what that society would look like. So, if you look at Africa as a continent, if we agree with the statistics that, demographically speaking, youth represent more than 50 percent of the population, and if you say half of that 50 percent are students, there is no way you would engage the sustainability question without really listening to the voice of this critical segment of society.

Pilvi Posio: Yes, indeed. It is their future that these sustainability challenges are affecting. So, it is crucial to support their agency in this area. And I believe your university students are active in promoting sustainability. Could you share with us some examples of how students have engaged in this issue at your home university?

Dr. Oshodi: Yes. Like you said, I teach at Lagos State University, and I've been closely following some of the students' activities there. I'll focus on three broad ways in which our students engage with sustainability.

Firstly, at LASU, if you mention “Green Janitors,” “LASU SDG Club,” or “Campus Recycling Champions,” these are all student clubs that engage with sustainability. While the SDG Club received support from university management, the Green Janitors and LASU Recycling Champions are entirely student-driven and student-created clubs.

Beyond clubs, at LASU, we have students organizing conferences. And I must emphasize—these are student-organized conferences. Having been part of the local organizing committee for conferences at my university, I know what it takes to organize one. So, for students to take on this task and organize conferences where stakeholders and fellow students come together to reflect and engage with sustainability issues is quite impressive. This year alone, the students organized two conferences: one on the environment in August, and just yesterday, on October 24th, a student summit on green futures took place. These are all events organized and managed by students.

The third way students engage is through what I refer to as "student extension activities." You not only have students going around, picking plastic bags, as their contribution to sustainability, but you have students at LASU going outside campus to engage with others students. And there are a lot of interesting episodes on how this has happened. So, for me, student clubs, conferences, and extension activities represent students at LASU in a very good light.

Pilvi Posio: Wow! This is indeed an impressive range of activities, from practical levels to more extensive awareness-building and leadership. But promoting sustainability is often far from easy. Can you share with us some of the challenges students face as stakeholders?

Dr. Oshodi: Yes, and in my interactions with students, the first challenge was, for me, not unexpected because, even globally, funding is a critical challenge in the sustainability question. At LASU, students have received some level of funding from university management and some stakeholders outside of campus, but the challenge remains. According to students, they have many ideas they actually want to push, but because of the question of funding, they have not been able to do that.

The second challenge is a reflection of the limitation of their own efforts, in terms of the students that have been left behind. Left behind in the sense that, although I have talked about the clubs, conferences, and the extension activities, in spite of that there are students that are not really engaged with the question of sustainability. And that brings me to the third challenge.

The third challenge is about courses. Many students imagine that the university will be a place where they, whatever background they are coming from, would be expanded, clarified and improved upon. However,  many of the courses the students have, that relates to sustainability, are really discipline specific. But the benefits we have at LASU, and I think at many universities in Nigeria, is that there are courses that, you know, we generally refer to those courses as general studies or GNS in LASU, if you like. And these courses are courses that all students must take before they graduate. So, for you to be a student at LASU, you must, not only take, but you must take and pass the GNS courses. So, I imagine, for example, where sustainability is incorporated somehow in the teaching of those courses to broaden the pool of students that would have been exposed to sustainability, sustainable development on campus, beyond what the clubs are trying to do, beyond what the conferences and extension services are trying to do.

Those are the key challenges that I have received speaking with some of the students that I have been able to interview for my project.

Pilvi Posio: Yes, it seems that also in campus lives and among students, the engagement of those not yet into the topic is also challenging. But as you highlighted, also resources are needed to actually realise these activities and maybe some joint planning. And as you mentioned, the teaching to widen the scope, but also the participants.

So, it makes sense. And there are many, many fields that the issue needs to be addressed. And, well, there are many challenges. But despite of these, the students really seem to work hard to establish a meaningful agency for them and for today's situation. But what about the future? If you would have a crystal ball and you would case into it. What kind of role you see for the students and their playing in reference to the sustainability question at the Lagos State University?

Dr. Oshodi: From where I sit, I think the future is very bright. The students I've interacted with, along with some alumni, it paints a picture of sustainability being expanded, being encouraged among students themselves. I also imagine that there will be courses that would be incorporated into the university's general studies system where students would at least would have been exposed to the issue of sustainability at some point in their studies, preferably in their first year so that as they get on campus, they are exposed to these issues and from the first year are free to actually engage with the student clubs and also student sustainability activities.

Well, I think LASU student could also be global leaders, in terms of engaging the sustainability question. Global leaders, national leaders and subnational leaders. As we speak, for example, there is a student, Elizabeth Adepoju, who is the current leader of the LASU SDG Club. She's doing brilliantly well. I can tell you that because of the level of engagement she's not only having with her colleagues on campus, but also in terms of her engagement with policymakers and also stakeholders outside of campus.

There is another student, Dauda Babatunde Ishiak, a student in the geography department who almost single-handedly organized the conference on sustainability issues at LASU. So, for looking at these students, seeing what they are doing, I'm, you know, very impressed.

And Abdusalam Ashadi, also one of the graduates of LASU. Yesterday, he was one of the key speakers at the student summit on green futures. So, when I see all these things happening, for me, I think the future can only be bright. And the university is also committed to the sustainability question. So, the student that LASU would be producing would actually be subnational, national and global leaders in the sustainability research, as well as advocacy and policy space.

Pilvi Posio: Wow, that's really inspiring, and also comforting news, to hear that you see that the future is bright. And we will really hope that the students and the mass will follow the lead of this really active and engaging champions of sustainability at your university. And it's great to hear that you expanded also kind of outside communities.

But as you mentioned the importance of knowledge and being exposed to the knowledge and ideas of sustainability, research is also one part of this solution to promote sustainability information. So, getting back to your own work. I am aware that student activities are also part of your research and you are also writing a paper on it. Could you describe a bit the paper and its focus? And when should we be expecting the read the publication?

Dr. Oshodi: Yes, I'm working on a paper that actually tries to understand our universities in Africa response to the sustainability question. But using my university as a case. There will be a paper, of course, but beyond the academic dissemination, beyond writing for the academia, there is also a documentary component to the research, in which case there will be a documentary that would be premiered first at Lagos State University, but afterwards uploaded on YouTube as a kind of open access presentation of what LASU has been able to do in terms of responding to the sustainability question.

And I'm also happy that the LASU experience would be a component of the MOOC courses that you talked about, the MOOC courses that will be developed, and that would also be open access.

So, for the paper, I think like every academic paper, it will go to the peer review and the rest of it. I think in the coming few months, maybe six months, thereabout, I should be able to share some of the research findings with others in the academic space, other researchers working on sustainability, both on campus as well as off campus.

Pilvi Posio: Well, this is great news. And I'm really looking forward to both reading the paper when it's published, but also seeing these sort of other aspects and forms of disseminating the kind of the leading role of Lagos State University and the activities. And it's also encouraging that you expand the publications beyond merely the academic formats. So, this really helps us to both evaluate and value and understand the youth agency that is very central. And I think that's a really important aspect for our sustainable future, and it has really been a pleasure to working with you for this MOOC course to share also the LASU experience, and the experience from the University of Turku, and share, compare and learn.

And I hope I'm also able to kind of, with this podcast, provide some inspiring examples for our listeners as well. So, thank you very much, Tobi, for joining this podcast to share your insights and experiences from your university.

Dr. Oshodi: Thank you, Pilvi. It's actually my pleasure.

Pilvi Posio: And for our listeners, thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast.

You are listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast, coordinated by the University of Turku in Finland.

Pilvi Posio: Welcome to the Hopeful Globe podcast, a collaboration between institutes of higher education, sharing inspiring stories across the globe. I'm Pilvi Posio from the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland, and a senior researcher in the project MOOCs for Sustainability Empowering Global Campuses. The project is coordinated by the Finnish University Network of Asian Studies, and it gathers partner universities from Asia, Africa and Europe to develop a massive open online course to share tools and inspiration on sustainable campus development.

In this episode, we'll explore the theme of sustainable and responsible food system transition and how University of Turku has engaged in activities for awareness building with responsible food on campus theme week. Our guide into the theme of this episode is senior researcher Saska Tuomasjukka from the Nutrition and Food Research Centre at the University of Turku. Saska was one of the organizers of the Responsible Food on Campus theme week, and he has long term experience on various research projects on sustainable food.

Welcome, Saska.

Saska Tuomasjukka: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Pilvi Posio: Thank you for joining us. And well, food is at the heart of your career. Could you share first a bit what you got? What got you interested in food and what do you do in your current position?

Saska Tuomasjukka: Well, it's a very good question. I would have never thought that food would be my career, but now it clearly is. I was born in the north, in a very different world, I'd say. I mean, perhaps the reason I'm interested in food that there wasn't that much of it at that time. At least it wasn't so varied and so plentiful and so luxurious as it currently is. It may be that I'm still currently confused about the abundance we have and the possibilities we have in an affluent Western society.

But after all, everything is just a result of coincidence. I first started studying electrical engineering, then I studied a couple of years comparative literature, and then I ended up to my old love chemistry and biochemistry and food chemistry. And yeah, that stuck.  I've done 25 years of food as my career in industry, in my own company, and as a researcher.

Pilvi Posio:  Okay. That's a very interesting career path. And I'd say that, well, personally, I also think that food is a really intriguing topic and an essential aspect of our everyday living. But as your kind of response about the abundance of food that we currently have reflects also food, a very significant role of the food in the current ecological crisis. And it is said that we are now living in a time of climate collapse and ecosystem tipping points. So, what does this mean and why should we believe in it?

Saska Tuomasjukka: Well, why is food so important? Well, because we need it. And there are eight billion of us and not everyone gets enough food. Quite a few get too much and almost everyone gets something not quite optimal. But after all, we just need it. So, we can't solve any problems by saying that, okay, let's just do less food.

We need the food to feed the people. And we need it every day. And we need it in places where the logistics and warehousing is not as sophisticated as we have. So, it is a necessity. It is a staple item.

And therefore, we need solutions for food if food causes problems. And it does. Because of this ‘eight billion’ factor, we are currently producing foods in ways that actually threaten the production of food in the future. I mean, it has been said that the first victim of the double crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change, the first victim is food production.

But it is also food production is also the prime cause of these. Especially in biodiversity loss, food is the prominent actor. And therefore, if we want to have that daily food for eight billion people, we really have to solve this problem. Otherwise, the problem is solved by the fact that the humanity will suffer.

That was a sort of too long reply to your answer. But I just want to stress that food is a staple item. We need it. And if there is a problem in the food production system, it needs to be solved. Otherwise, there either will not be food or there will not be a living planet. And there is no option for this. For many other things, we have the option that, okay, let's just stop doing it. But for necessity, it is not an option.

Pilvi Posio:  Well, then, to the darker themes, are we living on the time of collapse or something?

Saska Tuomasjukka: Well, we're on the verge of it. And if somebody says that, okay, then again, somebody's saying that the horrible things are just the next door, and that's not true, then have a look at the graphs of certain basic commodities, which currently are also very typical commodities we use: coffee, cocoa, olive oil.

If you look at their prices in the past 20 years, you see that they're pretty stable. I mean, on the average, it is plus, minus 15, 20, 25% fluctuations, but the past five years, these prices have started fluctuating really, really drastically. We can see 100-200% price increases for one year because of poor harvest caused by climate change. It may then be that the next year it is normal again, but then the next year it is again high.

So, there is a trend upwards and then there is this constant fluctuation, which tells us that we are possibly now at the tipping point. That the food system, it can still provide us, but it has so much variation that we cannot explain it by any other factor than the changing climate conditions, which are a risk for foods, not just coffee, cocoa and things like that, but for other more mundane items like apple juice, 50% more expensive this year, orange juice, 100% more expensive. Berries, et cetera.

So, I do think that we now see the effects of climate change. We do not see the effects of biodiversity loss, but climate change accelerates the biodiversity loss. So, within the end of this, by 2030, I'm pretty sure that we will be struggling to get the same food on our plates as we currently do.

Pilvi Posio:  Yeah, that's kind of really important remark about how food production both suffers and causes this sort of double role.

Saska Tuomasjukka: It's really to these two directions and it really is the first victim. And we clearly see it because we're not producing food in bioreactors, not in any time near to us. I mean, basically doing food in bioreactors requires an infinite source of green energy. And that is not available. So therefore, whoever says that that's the solution, I ask that please show me the engineers who give us that energy. And most importantly, it must be really sustainable energy. It cannot be based on fossil fuels.

Pilvi Posio:  Yeah, here we see the systemic effects of that. But you mentioned the future might be rather gloomy that awaits us in the worst case scenario. But I noted also that there are attempts and efforts to make, create solutions and we need those solutions. And fortunately, here locally also, there have been action taking to promote this sort of transformation or at least raising awareness of the transformation towards the better.

And you've been yourself involved in organizing the Responsible Food on Campus theme week at the University of Turku this October in 2024. So, could you share us a bit, what did the theme week activities include and what was its kind of primary goal?

Saska Tuomasjukka: The theme week was a result of our cooperation with the food service providers. We do a lot of research with them and certain things we tried were based on our research. But after all, theme weeks and the work, even if it's science based work done with the food services, it still is a very different from the very hard science we do.

In the theme weeks, we tried basically the things we know that work. Two things work. Increasing the availability of the sustainable foods does increase the consumption of them. Well, that sounds pretty obvious, but it is sort of neglected, perhaps because it doesn't sound fancy. Or perhaps more likely, because it means that if you switch from typical meat-based meals to typical plant-based meals, people sometimes don't get the food they are used to.

So, this solution that people start eating a bit differently, it is a very simple solution, but there is one big problem there and it is the people. I mean, individuals. They say that it's, I can't do it. It takes the pleasure from my life. And therefore, it is not being tried with sufficient vigor, I would say.

To put it simply, 100% increase in the sustainable foods on the menu results 50-60% increase in its consumption. So, if we want people to eat more sustainably, we really have to flood them with the alternatives. And then it starts working.

So that was the main theme there. Give the people the opportunity to choose from a wider selection of sustainable foods.

And to clarify that, okay, what are the sustainable foods? To put it very simply, it's always more sustainable to choose vegetarian meal with plant proteins compared with animal proteins. But of course, there are big differences between animal proteins. The one with the least damage to the nature is poultry. And fortunately, poultry meat, so-called white meat, is also the meat which is the healthiest option for people to eat. And this we can see in the new dietary guidelines we will be seeing in a couple of weeks.

Pilvi Posio:  Well, we took a kind of long jump from these global problems to the individual lives here at the campus. But I think this is a kind of interesting contrast. And also we can observe in your response that how the daily diet affects also the sustainability of the food system. And as you bring out the individual choices, and there seems to be also the shift of focus to the individual food choices, but also we should also focus on supply, that the whole food system is in a systematic way.

Saska Tuomasjukka: Yeah, well, it depends. Should we focus on that? It depends who you ask. Can I give you an example? I don't know if it means anything to people not in Finland.  But say, I mean, we are now waiting for these new dietary guidelines. We know what they are going to be like. The people know, the media knows, the industry knows.

And there is, for example, there is nothing strict there. I mean, obviously, people can continue eating like they do. But there is now, it is said that you really should think twice before you take heavily processed red meat, meaning sausages, for example. And do you need to use them on your sandwiches, for example?

And this is an item, of course, very, very sort of hurtful to certain people, but also to the industry. And then we read on the YLE news, the Finnish broadcasting company news, the opinion of the second biggest meat product producer, Atria. What do they say to this? They say that it is up to the people. If they start wanting these products, we start producing them.  And okay, right, that's how the business works. And then the company is saying that it really is up to these individuals.

And then we can start looking that are the individuals starting to ask for that? Well, they are not. I mean, we've had basically this same advice to people for 20 years: Eat less red meat. At the same time, the availability of red meat and even the prices of meat products have been really sort of lucrative to people. And this has resulted in increased consumption of meat.

So, if the industry only sees that, okay, we supply when there is demand, then nothing really happens quickly enough. So, therefore, I think that the way you formulated that shift, at least partial shift of the focus from the consumption to the supply is needed. And of course, we're not talking about any Soviet type of controlled economy where people are not allowed to choose what they eat. But we do need actions on the supply side. If the supply side only waits for the markets to start asking for something, then that will happen too late.

Pilvi Posio:  And currently it seems that this sort of responsibility is shifted to the individual in daily choices. But nevertheless, the system and the supply is very crucial also. What do you think? Where is this sort of, in terms of, effective transformation creation? Where is, in your own opinion, the most efficient leverage point influenced the food system transformation? A big question.

Saska Tuomasjukka: Well. That is really big. Perhaps before that, I could say that there is one thing that hinders us. We live in the tradition where good nutrition is seen as the duty of the individual, that you should eat right and that's it. If you don't, if you are ill, if you are fat, whatever, because of food, it is your own fault.

There is another tradition in the science and in societies where good nutrition is supposed to be available for anyone. And it is up to the society to make sure that people really get it. And of course, there needs to be a balance between these two. There is individual responsibility and then there's a responsibility for the society. But we are currently so heavily inclined to this individual responsibility. We see it everywhere. Not just nutrition, of course, that this makes it difficult. I mean, nothing happens because everything is up to the individual. And then in the end, the individual is predated by marketing and various kinds of stimulus to which they are the prey.

So, I would say that we like to think that individual has the power and has the freedom, but this is deceptive. In the end, this individual struggles in a system where the main theme is to get the consumption to increase. And therefore, it is so difficult to change anything because if the end result is that we consume less, then that is a problem for the current welfare society.

I don't know if this was any kind of reply to your answer.

Pilvi Posio:  Well, it at least gave a comprehensive analysis where we are and where we are stuck with this sort of. So, well, I believe there are many people, hopefully, trying to identify these sort of trigger points to create change. But as you bring out, it's a very complex system.

Saska Tuomasjukka: Of course, if we start looking at the leverage points, of course, individuals can be the leverage points. The question is that even if there are good examples, even if there are people able to produce visions for the future, when will these visions be realized? Is it only after this system has collapsed? That's one sort of scenario where these visions we create of the right kind of action, they are important, but it might be that they are only understood when we've seen the current way to collapse. Of course, nobody wants it to collapse.

But then other places where people sort of already now are giving sort of up some part of their freedom of choice, they do exist. And food service really is one of those places because, I mean, it's your daily lunch in Finnish system. You very often go with your colleagues or friends, you go to a lunch to the same place every day. And you know that the place offers you nutritious food at a cheap price. And it's something that you just know that I go there, I get a good balanced value for money.

And then these food service operators, they are used to being steered by different kinds of mechanisms, guiding them to offer nutritious food and now also sustainable food. So, by going to these places where there is a responsible food service operator, people are creating the leverage point. The food services already now have reduced quite substantially their environmental footprint, CO footprint or biodiversity effects by choosing away from certain raw materials or by reducing food waste.

So, I would say that one of the biggest leverage points currently are these food service operators. And that's the reason we cooperate with them. And that was a reason for the Campus Week, because it's not just the week when people perhaps ate slightly more sustainably. But it was the creation of the tools for the food service operators to make this process continue so that in the future they could do this not on a theme week, but every week.

And also for them to learn from the project that what do the people think? How did it feel to the people? Were they happy with this? Was this too much for them or was this too little? We actually, when we made the survey, we got a surprising result. Basically, sort of like 50 to 75 percent of respondents said that to them it would be okay to reduce meat on the menus to half of the current amount.

There seems to be actually a demand. That the supplier currently does not supply for. But of course, we are here now at the university environment. University canteens are completely different from some other places. But anyway, whenever the supplier says that we start producing when there is a demand, it might be that there is a demand, but it is not sort of realized before you really go and dig deep and ask and try.

Pilvi Posio:  That seems that there is something to make trial and actually also to understand how willing, at least how some of the people are to make changes.

Saska Tuomasjukka: And then, of course, be really critical about people saying that, yeah, would be happy to eat 50 percent less meat. After one week, they may say that, no, I actually, I don't think so anymore. People are telling, they do not usually walk their talk. So it might be that the future is not this rosy. For even for university canteens.

But still, we were surprised with the result. People seem to be ready to try at least to reduce the most unsustainable items. And perhaps this kind of reply from them is triggered by the campaign, where they perhaps tried some new things and found out that, OK, I can live without that favorite food.

Pilvi Posio:  Yeah, this is a well, the sustainability is always sort of it can be a depressing topic. So, for in the in a kind of accordance to this kind of name of this podcast series, that is a Hopeful Globe. So maybe we can try to have this sort of a hopeful notions of this sort of little steps towards trial and maybe failure at some point. But to see these sort of opportunities to affect the diets or to support more sustainable food systems.

But I think you had the theme sustainable. And also, responsible food in the name of the theme week. Also, healthy food is a very kind of trendy food topic nowadays. And it kind of all transformation, in my opinion, is kind of related on how things are framed and how does it appeal to the users or the consumers?

And currently, I believe planetary diet is also emerging as this sort of one food concept in Finland. But is it a new concept or what it is? Actually, I understood it kind of combines the healthy and the sustainable.

Saska Tuomasjukka: But yeah, it combines healthy and sustainable. I think that always when somebody says that I've never been, tell me about planetary health. I think the next five years, we should say that we should be giving the praise for planetary health for Professor Walter Willett, who was a professor who has been a professor at Harvard for 20 years. And he has fought against everyone with his healthy, sustainable diet.

He tried to sell the idea of vegetarian or less meat diet being healthier than the conventional diet. And he lost that fight every time the past 20 years. But only after there was this growing concern for the effects of food production to sustainability. Only after taking this into the concept and by, together with Eat Lancet Commission, creating this concept, planetary diet. Only after that, he actually won that battle.

And now, finally, the more plant-based diets are being accepted. Because even in Finland, there was some sort of precautions with a vegan diet only 15 years ago. And people experienced this personally when they went to the nursery. So, with this planetary diet, which is now established, for example, in the new Nordic dietary recommendations, now it is okay to eat plant-based. And it is healthier for everyone to eat less meat and more plants, more plant proteins, for example.

But it's a concept where we just take into account, that okay, if there are 8 billion of us. And if we want that all these people have the access to sufficient food and to healthy food. Then it cannot be like the diet we currently have in Finland. It cannot be the diet we currently have in Australia or Chile. Or definitely not the one we've got in the United States.

Because one planet is not enough for producing that food. So instead, if we want to share the diet, in a manner that everyone gets what they need. And also, in a fair manner. Then we need to eat less meat and more vegetable-based foods.

So, to put it simply, planetary diet is a diet which is good for the human health. And good for the planetary boundaries. I mean, the planet can sustain it. It's a sustainable diet. Which also is the healthiest diet we currently know.

Of course, it has different forms in different countries. For example, what Walter Willett and Eat Lancet commission proposed at 2019. That was the global diet. If everyone ate in a similar way, then they would eat like they proposed.

But of course, here in Finland we don't eat like people in Philippines or Thailand or Japan. So, it must be modified to the local diet. So, this is what we see now when we get the Finnish dietary recommendations. There is still much more milk and dairy products in the diet than there are on the global planetary diet. And this is because in Finland much of the food production currently is based on dairy production.

But anyway, there's a clear trend in the recommendations. There is much less meat. Much less dairy products than there used to be like 15-20 years ago.

And of course, this is also based on more knowledge. I mean, what can we say? When I was a baby in the 70s, our mothers were told that stop breastfeeding as quickly as possible, and start feeding carrots and everything like that pureed. That's healthy. And then only 10 years later the same ladies, good ladies working with the babies said that. Well, that was the best knowledge of that time, and now we know better. Please continue breastfeeding.

So, in a similar manner, we never get actually the final diet. Which is really the optimal for people. But all the time we get to know more. And what we've learned the most in the past 20 years is how unsustainable the current food system is for the planet. And combined with the climate change, how dangerous the current diet is for the whole of the humanity. So, that is the new thing there. And the reasons for taking it gravely are really, they are imminent.

Pilvi Posio:  Yeah, and I think the science has also a role in promoting or creating the knowledge on what is sustainable, healthy and towards what we should eat.

Saska Tuomasjukka: Well, I mean, I would say, of course, that's the only source of producing this kind of information. There's always, especially in nutrition and food, there are always trends which claim that science is producing information which is not really definite or which is not sort of consensus. That consensus doesn't exist and etc. But then if we are thinking that we live on a knowledge-based society, making decisions based on the best of knowledge. Then there is no way of getting away from the fact that currently the planetary diet is the best advice for humanity to eat sustainably and healthily.

Pilvi Posio:  Yeah, that's a very big and interesting topic. And I could go on and on discussing these notions of knowledge on food and understanding, but also culture and this sort of ideas and perceptions of food, feelings related on food. I think that's such a very, very critical everyday supply, as you mentioned, that we need it every day to both live, but also to enjoy. And it relates in so many, so many aspects of our life.

But to wrap up, I think we touched upon many issues about leverage points and systemic change and individual food choices. But as a last remark to our listeners: What do you see, if you need to choose one thing in this kind of transformation towards sustainable food system, what would be the most crucial thing to change or, you can choose, what will be the next step that if you have a crystal ball, what will happen towards what we are going? Are the nutrition recommendations? Will they be effective? You mentioned that people are not eating despite of that.

Saska Tuomasjukka: They've never been effective. So, they create, of course, the discussion and they create, they will create guidance to the food service. So, where we will see these new guidelines in use are especially these food services I was talking about.

But to your question that where will I see the change? I could say something very simple. I would say that the next substantial change we see is that we stop eating rice and start eating potatoes. Because that's really, really easy for people. We've seen that. We've proven that. And it has a dramatic effect on the sustainability because potato is so much more sustainable than rice.

So, if I'm looking at the effect, I'm currently looking at simple things which are so simple that they sound ridiculous. I mean, OK, so can I continue eating meat if I switch from rice to potato? I would say, yes, do that. Because I know that you can do that change. And I do suspect that you cannot stop eating meat.

So therefore, I'd say that go for potatoes. So that's what you do now. And once you've done that, after two years, we'll come back to you and we'll say that, see, you could change yourself. Now you can start thinking of changing the way you eat meat. You could probably reduce the amount of meat a little. You could probably change from red meat to white meat. So, once you start changing, then that's an endless path. And therefore, what I'd like to see first is that people would start changing. Once they start that, they can't stop it because they have proven that they can do it. So therefore, the next big thing is potato.

Pilvi Posio:  OK. That will be a very interesting topic for our listeners from Asia, for example. But that's the topic for another episode, I'd say. I would love to continue this. But for this episode, I really enjoyed this fascinating discussion that provided this sort of wider understanding on the food systems and sustainability. And also practical inspiration, I hope, from joint actions and individual food diets. Particularly on the University of Turku activities.

So, thank you, Saska, for sharing these insights and giving us, well, a food for thought. And thank you for joining us.

Saska Tuomasjukka: Thank you.

Pilvi Posio:  And for our listeners, thank you for joining the Hopeful Globe podcast, showcasing inspiring initiatives by institutes of higher education across the globe.

You have been listening to the Hopeful Globe podcast.