Abstract: A major challenge is to better understand how human societies and healthy ecosystems can thrive, on an ever more globalized and crowded planet. Ecotourism is an increasingly popular sustainable development strategy because of its potential to stimulate economic growth while conserving environmental resources.  I present a series of studies that measure social and ecological outcomes of ecotourism in Tibetan areas of southwest China. I highlight interactions and feedbacks occurring between the human and natural systems at multiple spatial scales, and I discuss the conservation implications for Himalayan old-growth forests, a geographically-limited and severely threatened biome.

Biography: Jodi is a postdoctoral research fellow at Dartmouth College, USA. She is a conservation scientist who integrates data and techniques from natural and social sciences to characterize environmental change processes. She has worked in a wide range of socio-ecological contexts, including coastal zones of the North American Great Lakes, tropical forests in the Congo, arid rangelands in the Bolivian Andes, and alpine and forest ecosystems in the Himalayans. She employs a variety of methodological tools, including remote sensing, experimental field plots, observational studies, spatial analysis, and econometric modelling. Her approach is very collaborative, and she has published with ecologists, economists, earth scientists, ethno-botanists, political scientists, environmental managers, and indigenous knowledge-holders.