Welcome | Mihi

Tēnei te ruru
E koukou mai nei
Kīhai mahitihiti
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Te upokonui o te ruru terekou
He pō he pō
He ao ka awatea

Tahuri ana au ki te tihi o te mauka e kīa nei ko Aoraki
Nahana ko Pukaki te roto, nahana ko Waitakitaki te awa

Tēnā koutou
Kai te mihi ki a koutou te manawhenua o tēnei motu
Ko Te Waka o Aoraki

Ki kā kairakahau maha, tēnā hoki koutou.
Nau mai, tahuti mai ki tēnei paetukutuku.

The Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment (CSAFE) is a transdisciplinary research centre at the University of Otago, within the Department of Geography under the Division of Humanities.

Research undertaken through CSAFE is targeted at the interface between social and environmental sciences. This interface is explored through the dynamics of agricultural sustainability.

Vision and Mission
Te Tūtoro/Te Whakatakanga

CSAFE’s vision is for improved and more sustainable economic, environmental and social wellbeing in New Zealand.

CSAFE’s mission is to discover and promote effective, practical pathways to sustainable land use, food and fibre production, and wild food harvesting. This will be achieved through innovative bicultural and trans-disciplinary research of social-ecological systems, and by training students, our future researchers, environmental managers and policy makers to the highest international standards.

Achieving our Vision
Tutukutia o Mātou Whakatakanga

CSAFE’s research identifies practical pathways to enhancing social, environmental and economic wellbeing through discovery of sustainable food production and harvesting strategies, and efficient environmental management. This will be achieved by:

A trans-disciplinary approach: several disciplines working together to solve complex socio-ecological problems
A focus on feedback between people, land and markets
Discovering knowledge and tools to empower farming families and wild food gatherers to act in a sustainable way
Research of effective governance initiatives that capture the potential of all stakeholders to make food and fibre production and wild food gathering sustainable

Our Future – Our Relationships
Te Wā e Heke Mai Nei – Ngā Hononga

CSAFE is working towards enhancing relationships with other researchers within the University of Otago, and with researchers nationally and internationally in the areas of:

Sustainable land use (production landscapes)
Ecological resilience indicators in production landscapes
Governance issues surrounding land use
Adaptive co-management and ecosystem management
Bicultural partnership models for science and management
Energy use on productive land

Click here to download the CSAFE brochure

The CSAFE SEMINAR series

Upcoming Seminars:

Wednesday 10 February 2010

Speaker: Mads Madsen

World upside down. A learning theoretical perspective on preconditions for integrating multifunctionality in farm decision making in New Zealand and Denmark

Abstract

More info on the series >>

Future seminars>>

news & events

Event

Cross-cultural participatory research – NZ and international perspectives

We are proud to announce the publication of “Forum: Cross-cultural environmental research and management”, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 39(4) December 2009. This contains 21 papers from Aotearoa and internationally, with contributors ranging from researcher/community collaborations to renowned scholars such as Fikret Berkes and Arun Agrawal. Guest editors were Henrik Moller, Janet Stephenson and Rachel Turner from CSAFE.

Individual papers can be downloaded free of charge . Please click here and arrow down the page to Volume 39 No 4, and below this is the heading Forum: Cross-cultural environmental research and management. Links to the various papers are below this, and below each abstract is a link to the pdf of that paper.

CSAFE Vacancies

None at present

Past Events

Visit by Professor Nancy Turner - Williams Evans Fellow 2009

16 Sept - 9 Oct 2009

Professor Nancy Turner is an ethnobotanist and Distinguished Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada.

For a full schedule of events click here.

Otago Foreign Policy School - Dimensions of the Global Food Crisis

26-28 June 2009

Directors:Associate Professor Hugh Campbell & Dr Chris Rosin

A range of internationally recognised speakers will address a variety of aspects of and perspectives on the global food crisis. These include:

• the causes of the world food crisis,
• the future shape of global agriculture,
• a sustainable diet for planet earth,
• the effects of energy scarcity and biofuels,
• the role of local food systems,
• the future of global food trade for food exporting countries,
• the key challenges for New Zealand and its food export industries.

Please click here to downloaded presentations.

Full OFPS website >>

News

23 Sept 2008

Researchers at CSAFE have been awarded a Marsden Grant to the value of $870 k over 3 years.

Associate Professor Henrik Moller & Dr Janet Stephenson:
Plans, Power and Partnerships: re-visioning planning and resource management theory for adaptive co-management of environment by indigenous people for cultural-ecological resilience.

more info >>