A delegation of UMBC Africana studies students recently joined teams from three continents for the 17th annual International Model African Union (MAU) Conference in Washington D.C., hosted by Howard University. Participants represented the 54 countries on the African continent in the simulation event, discussing economic, social, political, and security issues.

“The MAU is an important experiential learning exercise to study the role, structure, and activities of the African Union,” explains Gloria Chuku, professor and chair of the Africana studies, and the delegation’s faculty advisor. “As model representatives, students enhance their skills and understanding of global diplomacy and public speaking through simulations.”

UMBC’s team included Damarius Johnson ’19, Africana studies; Maurice Cates ’21, Mahlet Gebre-Egziabher ’21, and Marion Sillah ’22, political science; Kemi Biaou ’21, biological sciences; and Enzo Walker ’20, computer science. The group represented the southwestern island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe.

Johnson served as head delegate and member of the simulation’s Committee on Pan Africanism and Continental Unity. In preparation for the event, he led the independent study group in researching the country’s history and current status. This advance preparation proved essential for drafting policy proposals to present to parliament during the simulation.

Understanding Africa’s core policy issues

Participants started the conference at the African Union (AU) Representational Mission in Georgetown. A panel of scholars of  Africana and diaspora studies, including professor Chuku, and a member from the African Union Representation Mission led a question and answer session on significant topics discussed by African policymakers today, a half-century after independence. The session included discussion of economic development, youth employment, female genital mutilation (FGM), LGBTQ civil rights, collaboration with countries in the African diaspora, and the emigration of high-skilled African professionals to other continents.

“The world seems small when we stay in one place, but when we travel we come to understand issues beyond our own culture,” Silla shares. Silla moved to the U.S. from Sierra Leone four years ago and, during the simulation, she served on the Committee on Democracy, Governance and Human Rights. She says, “Broadening my point of view made me think about where I stand as a woman, a black woman, a Muslim woman, and an immigrant on a global scale.”

Simulating the Pan-African Parliament

Over a four day-period, committees presented their proposals during a simulated session of the Pan-African Parliament. They followed parliamentary procedure, led by a student chair, parliamentarian, and vice chair. Committees presented, debated, and amended their proposals during the moderated caucus, before moving on to negotiations and proposal revision. They then submitted the revised proposals for a final vote leading to a resolution.

“I learned that compromise is an integral process of diplomacy,” Johnson reflects. “You must listen and engage with fellow delegates in ways that demonstrate the value of their interests and their needs.”

In addition to the committee proposals, the event also included a simulated crisis situation, managed through the African Union’s Executive Council. This year’s crisis was a contested election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with allegations of voter fraud.

Cates, a member of the Executive Council, helped decide what course the AU would take. “We deliberated on whether to send AU troops and make it an international matter. This meant discussing how to manage refugees,” he explained. “It was not a simple process. Governments are often challenged to choose between peace and democracy.”

Common vision for a prosperous Africa

The simulation proved to be a pivotal moment of inspiration for the UMBC delegation. They were excited to live out their aspirations as leaders in supporting the development of a stable and prosperous Africa.

Cates hopes to become a lobbyist and Johnson will soon head to a Ph.D. program in history at The Ohio State University. As African American students who see themselves as part of the African diaspora, but have not had an opportunity to travel to Africa, they particularly valued the chance to speak with African representatives who were at the event. “It was a unique opportunity to discuss issues like pan-Africanism and current affairs in African countries with Africans who have an investment in their countries,” shares Cates.

Biaou, a member of the simulation’s Peace and Security Committee, and Walker, part of the Economic Matters Committee, are immigrants from Benin and Liberia, respectively. “My parents left their engineering and business careers to be in a country that grants me a great deal of privilege,” explains Biaou. “The MAU helped confirm my desire to use my professional skills to be part of a thriving Africa.”

Both Biaou and Walker aim to eventually return to West Africa to contribute, as professionals, through STEM, business, and education initiatives.

Gebre-Egziabner and Silla, originally from Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, plan to pursue careers as diplomats focusing on women’s issues. “The official African Union is located in my home city of Addis Ababa,” says Gebre-Egziabner. “It excited me to think of what I can do when I return.”

Silla, who left Sierra Leone for the United States to avoid FGM, hopes to address FGM and economic issues facing women in Africa. She sees her UMBC experience as giving her a strong foundation for that future work.

“That is something UMBC has done for me. It makes me interact with different people and different ideas every day,” Silla says. “Every day is a learning experience.”

Banner image: [L to R] Biaou, Walker, Sillah, Chuku, Johnson, Gebre-Egziabher, and Cates holding their certificates of completion. Photo courtesy of Chuku.

Frances Carter-Johnson, M.S. ’07, applied physics, and Ph.D. ’11, public policy, is used to getting questions about why she jumped from physics to public policy and explaining how, in her career path, it’s really all connected.

“I thought I was going to go to law school but I found physics and fell in love,” says the UMBC triple alumna. Carter-Johnson earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and engineering, then a master’s degree in physics. “During that time, I also realized I enjoyed working in the community,” she says. Her mentors, President Freeman Hrabowski, Associate Vice Provost Renetta Tull, and Dean Janet Rutledge, pointed her in the direction of a Ph.D. in public policy. Today, she combines her love of analytics, physics, and math as an education data scientist at the National Science Foundation.

Learning from stories like Carter-Johnson’s, the UMBC School of Public Policy is working to create more opportunities for diverse students to see future careers for themselves in the field.

Reaching out

To move this work forward, the UMBC School of Public Policy is partnering with the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), a national organization that fosters excellence in research, analysis, and education in public policy. On March 12, the partners hosted a day-long public policy camp to connect with undergraduate and graduate students, particularly from underrepresented groups, who may not be exposed to public policy as a field of study.

Susan Sterett, director of the School of Public Policy, and Jane Lincove, associate professor of public policy, envisioned the event and proposed it to APPAM. Their goal was to draw diverse students from across UMBC and the broader mid-Atlantic region.

“We felt that UMBC was uniquely positioned to meet APPAM’s goals in helping to diversify the field because of UMBC’s strong, diverse student scholars, many of whom are first-generation or come from underrepresented groups,” shares Lincove. UMBC’s proximity to Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York also provided an opportunity to connect with a large number of students about professional possibilities that exist in the field.

Sterett and Lincove worked with UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology and the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences to reach students usually not exposed to public policy. They also drew participants from other University System of Maryland schools, area HBCUs, local community colleges, and additional private universities, such as Johns Hopkins, Temple, American, Virginia Commonwealth, and Columbia.

Alumni share their perspectives

Several public policy alumni, as well as faculty and current doctoral public policy students, participated in the event, to share how they have applied their skills in the field in a broad range of ways. They shared their experiences through both small group conversations and a panel discussion.

Understanding the practical value of a diverse team was an important message for Steve Sharkey, M.P.P. ’06, public policy, who serves as director of Baltimore’s Department of General Services. “We need more women and people of different races [in the policy field]. That is the future,” explained Sharkey. “Different perspectives are important for creating policy and to understanding community impact.”

Other participants focused on the need to develop policy through a more holistic, systems approach. This approach allows Margarita Cardona, a UMBC doctoral student in education policy, to implement rules and regulations for research with human subjects in her work as assistant provost of sponsored research at the University of Baltimore. “I manage a review board that depends on implementing policy to ensure the best practices in research,” explains Cardona. “Having real-world conversations about policy-driven solutions to community problems helps demystify what public policy is and can do.”

Qubilah Huddleston, M.P.P. ’17, education policy, a program manager for Code in the Schools, agrees. Huddleston is avid about sharing the realities of policy implementation at the local level. “There are only four Baltimore City schools that provide computer science education,” she explains. “Managing a program that fills that need means understanding government and education policy. We have to be intentional about making decisions for long-term positive impact.”

Hands-on learning

Throughout the day, students also focused on interactive activities led by alumni and other professionals in the field. Groups practiced foundational public policy skills like interviewing and active listening. They also practiced conducting research and implementing policy on two current Baltimore City issues: food deserts and lack of reliable heating in public schools. The second half of the camp focused on an interactive game to understand budget and fiscal policy.

Incoming freshman Shriya Samala ‘23, who has been interested in public policy and political science, appreciated the opportunity to network with professionals and peers who are in different stages of their journey. She compared notes with Emmanuel Caintic, a CCBC student interested in constitutional law, and Daniel Kozlowski ‘19, mechanical engineering and a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar, who, like Carter-Johnson, is combining his love of a STEM field with public service. Together, they were excited about the many future paths open to them in public policy.

“The public policy camp was a great opportunity to meet UMBC’s public policy faculty and professionals in different areas,” explains Samala. “I have been working in local politics in Virginia throughout high school. I want to run for office someday,” she says. “Today was a step towards meeting my goal.”

Banner image: Amanda Latimore (left), assistant scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, leads a table discussion with students. All photos courtesy of UMBC’s School of Public Policy.

By Matthew Fagan, UMBC; Leighton Reid, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Margaret Buck Holland, UMBC

Tropical forests globally are being lost at a rate of 61,000 square miles a year. And despite conservation efforts, the global rate of loss is accelerating. In 2016 it reached a 15-year high, with 114,000 square miles cleared.

At the same time, many countries are pledging to restore large swaths of forests. The Bonn Challenge, a global initiative launched in 2011, calls for national commitments to restore 580,000 square miles of the world’s deforested and degraded land by 2020. In 2014 the New York Declaration on Forests increased this goal to 1.35 million square miles, an area about twice the size of Alaska, by 2030.

Ecological restoration is a process of helping damaged ecosystems recover. It produces many benefits for both wildlife and people – for example, better habitat, erosion control, cleaner drinking water and jobs.

That’s why the Bonn Challenge is so exciting for geographers and ecologists like us. It brings restoration into the center of global discussions about combating climate change, preventing species extinctions and improve farmers’ lives. It connects governments, organizations, companies and communities, and is catalyzing substantial investments in forest restoration.

However, a closer look shows that a struggle remains to fully realize the Bonn Challenge vision. Some reforestation efforts provide only limited benefits, and studies have shown that maintaining these forests for decades is critical to maximize the economic and ecological benefits of establishing them.

Putting trees back on the land

So far, 48 nations and 10 states and companies have made Bonn Challenge commitments to restore 363,000 square miles by 2020 and another 294,000 square miles by 2030. The United States and a Pakistani province have already fulfilled their commitments, restoring a total of 67,000 square miles.

Restoring forests poses political and economic challenges for national governments. Letting forests grow back inevitably means pulling land out of farming. Natural forest regeneration mainly occurs where farmers have abandoned poor quality land, or where governments discourage poor farming practices – for example, near wetlands or on steep slopes. Opportunities for natural regeneration elsewhere are limited.

As a result, much forest landscape restoration under the Bonn Challenge focuses on improving existing landscapes using trees. Restoration activities may include creating timber or fruit plantations; agroforestry, or planting rows of trees in and around agricultural fields; and silviculture, or improving the condition of degraded forests.

One early success, the “Billion Tree Tsunami” in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has exceeded its 350,000-hectare pledge through a combination of protecting forest regeneration and planting trees. Similarly, Rwanda has restored 700,000 of the 2 million hectares it pledged, primarily through agroforestry and reforesting erosion-prone areas, and created thousands of green jobs.

Green deserts

However, these “restored forests” are often poor replacements for natural habitat. For animals dwelling in tropical forests, agroforestry and tree plantations can look more like green deserts than forests.

Many tropical forest wildlife species are only found in mature tropical forests and cannot survive in open agroforests, monoculture tree plantations or young natural regeneration. Truly restoring tropical forest habitat takes a diversity of forest species, and time.

Nonetheless, these working “forests” do have ecological value for some species, and can spare remaining natural forests from axes, fire and plows. In addition, scientists have estimated that restored forests could sequester up to 16 percent of the carbon needed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while generating some US$84 billion in assets such as timber and erosion control.

Restored, but for how long?

Benefits for wildlife and Earth’s climate from forest restoration accrue over decades. However, many forests are unlikely to remain protected for this long.

In a 2018 study we showed that forests that naturally regenerated in Costa Rica between 1947 and 2014 had only a 50 percent chance of enduring for 20 years. Most places where forests regrew were subsequently re-cleared for farming. Twenty years represents about a quarter of the time needed for forest carbon stocks to fully recover, and less than one-fifth of the time required for many forest-dwelling plants and animals to return.

Unfortunately, 20 years may be more than most new forests get. Studies in Brazil and Peru show that regenerating forests there are re-cleared even faster, often after just a few years.

This problem is not limited to natural forests. Agroforests worldwide are under pressure. For example, until recent decades, coffee and cocoa farmers in the tropics raised their crops in agroforests under a shady canopy of trees, which mimicked the way these plants grow in nature and maximized their health. Today, however, many of them grow their crops in the sun. This method can improve yield, but requires pesticides and fertilizer to compensate for added stress on the plants.

And although timber plantations sequester additional carbon with every harvest and replanting, their replanting is dependent on shifting market demand for wood. Once they are harvested after six to 14 years of growth, tropical timber plantations can be abandoned as a bad investment and replaced with higher-yielding row crops or pasture.

Solid foundations for recovery

If the Bonn Challenge is to achieve its goals, nations will have to find ways of converting short-term restoration pledges into long-term ecosystem recovery. This may require tightening the rules.

Some countries have pledged to protect unrealistically large areas. For example, Rwanda committed to restore 77 percent of its national territory, and Costa Rica and Nicaragua pledged to restore 20 percent of their territories apiece. Another flaw is that the Bonn Challenge does not prevent countries from deforesting some areas even as they are restoring others.

It will be impossible to track overall progress without an international commitment to monitor and sustain restoration successes. International organizations need to invest in satellite and local monitoring networks. We also believe they should consider how large international investments in sectors such as agriculture, mining and infrastructure drive forest loss and regrowth.

Countries like Indonesia that may be considering a Bonn Challenge pledge should be encouraged to focus on long-term impacts. Instead of restoring 10,000 square miles of one-year-old forest by 2020, why not restore 5,000 square miles of 100-year-old forest by 2120? Countries like Costa Rica that have already pledged can lock in those gains by protecting regrown forests.

The U.N. General Assembly recently approved a resolution designating 2021 to 2030 as the U.N. Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. We hope this step will help motivate nations to keep their promises and invest in restoring Earth’s deforested and degraded ecosystems.

* * * * *

Matthew Fagan, Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Leighton Reid, Faculty Associate, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Margaret Buck Holland, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header image: A regenerating stand of rainforest in northern Costa Rica. Matthew Fagan, CC BY-ND

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