Johnson’s talk will trace how agriculture is simultaneously a pressing threat and a powerful opportunity for the conservation of wild species within and outside nature reserves. Drawing especially on recent research on birds in tropical farms, Johnson will outline win-win outcomes in which cultivation practices that conserve wild species can also benefit farmers. This approach works, he says, by integrating teaching and collaborative research involving undergraduate and graduate students.
“Nature reserves, refuges, and national parks are sometimes viewed as islands of habitat in a homogeneous ‘sea’ of human disturbance, but this is a misguided view that will lead to the failure of wildlife conservation in the long run,” according to Johnson. “Environmental education should advance an enlarged and interdisciplinary treatment of agriculture, food security and conservation.”
Johnson began teaching wildlife management at HSU in 1999. He received the Scholar of the Year award for “intense engagement with students, highly productive research and applications of his work to integrating human and wildlife needs.”
A specialist in wildlife habitat relationships and tropical wildlife ecology, Johnson won early recognition in his HSU career as a 2004 recipient of the McCrone Promising Young Scholar Award.