Torsten Krause

Areas of Expertise

• Forestry and Forest Governance
• Conservation Science
• Traditional Ecological Knowledge
• Ethnobiology
• Environmental Justice

Current Research

I am part of the MaCoBioS project (https://macobios.eu/) on Marine Coastal Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Services in a Changing World. MaCoBios is a four-year project funded by the EU H2020. Its main objective is to ensure efficient and integrated management and conservation strategies for European marine coastal ecosystems to face climate change.

I am also part of the new 3 year BiodivERsA project EPICC (funded through FORMAS in Sweden) with a focus onEnvironmental Policy Instruments across Commodity Chains Multilevel governance for Biodiversity-Climate in Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia. Within EPICC I will study gold and cattle commodity chains in Colombia.

More recently I also started to work with sustainability and environmental justice in post-conflict societies, particularly focusing on Colombia, as part of the interdisciplinary project Nature of Peace at Lund University (funded by FORMAS).

Other research interests include agroforestry and the use of new agroforestry tree products and how these can support small-scale and local indigenous farmers in maintaining their agroforestry practices for a more sustainable forest management in Latin America.

Previous research projects

I am part of a European H2020 project on Innovation and Forest Ecosystem Services where I lead the Swedish Case Study. However, in the past years I spent most of my time working on defaunation as a missing piece in forest governance. In this project I studied how international and national forest governance takes forest fauna and local hunting into account when designing policies and new conservation programs. I am particularly interested in traditional knowledge around hunting of forest fauna in the Amazon focusing on Colombia and Ecuador and just finished a three-year research project on defaunation funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet).
 

Teaching

• I teach in various courses at Lund University Master's Program in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science - (Sustainability Science; Earth System Science, Governance and Sustainability, Urban & Rural Systems and Sustainability)
• Human Geography & Human Ecology at Lund University – Teaching in SGEM 14 (Urban and Regional Planning for Sustainability), HEKM22 (Methods in Human Ecology); HEKX10 (Global Environmental Justice); SGEL 49 (Sustainable Development from a global, regional and local perspective)
• Other Master Programmes at Lund University (e.g., Conservation Biology, International Development and Management, Asian Studies; Graduate School) and University of Gothenburg (Sustainable Development: Conflicts, Communication and Collaboration)
• Guest lectures in various PhD courses (ClimBEcco – From Local to Global: Political Ecology, Natural Resource Conflicts and Environmental Peacebuilding)
• Supervision of Master Theses in Lund University Master's Program in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science, Uppsala University Masters in Sustainable Development and Gothenburg University Master Program in Environmental Science.

Outreach

Blog entries & Briefs:

• Nature of Peace (October 2020): Peace in the peaks? Reinforced Inequalities in the Colombian Andes during the Post-conflict
• Nature of Peace (May 2020): Colombia’s environment in the post-conflict transition – New set-backs by the global pandemic
• The Relevator:Why indigenous hunting is essential to forest sustainability.
• Ecoagriculture Partners: Where are the Monkeys? The Fallacy of evaluating conservation from above the canopy.
• FOCALI (Forests, Climate and Livelihood Research Network): Agroforestry in the western Amazon – opportunities for new markets and threats from expanding natural resource extraction.
• FOCALI (Forests, Climate and Livelihood Research Network): Workshop – Building partnerships with forest communities. 
• FOCALI (Forests, Climate and Livelihood Research Network): A recap from workshop on Forest Conservation, Agroforestry and Livelihoods.
• FOCALI (Forests, Climate and Livelihood Research Network): Reflections on participatory monitoring.
• FOCALI (Forests, Climate and Livelihood Research Network): Bottom-up but also top-down – why local institutions matter for REDD+
• FOCALI - SIANI policy brief on the key to successful partnerships with forest communities

Newspaper articles:

• EL Tiempo (September 2019) - Article in Colombia’s largest newspaper ‘El Tiempo’ titled ‘Bosques vacíos, ¿una amenaza para combatir el cambio climático?
• Dagens Industry – Debattartikel (August 2019) - Bränderna hota hela ekosystemet.
• ETC (May 15 2019): Minskade utsläpp räcker inte för att rädda mångfalden
• El Tiempo, Colombia: "Hay que seguir ruta del dinero detrás de los incendios en Amazonia"
• Miljö och Utveckling: “Rädda Regnskogenprojekt skapar problem”
• Miljö och Utveckling: Debate article on CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) – Nr. 2, 2014
• Lund Universitet Magasin Nr. 5 2012: ”Hur räddas regnskogen bäst?”
• Sydsvenskan October 7 2016: "Utan stöd utifrån är den fred som var så nära plötsligt mycket långt borta igen."