Globalization expert Eric Lambin will present “Land Use Change in the Globalization Era: Challenges and Opportunities,” the Wallace W. Atwood Lecture presented by the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. The lecture is free and open to the public beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, in Tilton Hall, Higgins University Center, 950 Main St.

Professor Lambin will discuss the central challenge in sustainability of how to preserve forest ecosystems and their rich biodiversity while enhancing food production. This challenge for developing countries confronts the force of economic globalization, which seeks cropland and triggers deforestation.

Professor Lambin is the Ishiyama Professor at the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences at Stanford and a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. He also is a professor at the Earth and Life Institute at the University of Louvain, Belgium. His research deals with human environment interactions and land use change in different parts of the world, by combining remote sensing and socio-economic data. His current interests are focused on the impact of globalization on land use governance.

Lambin is Foreign Associate at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Fellow at the European and Belgian Academies of Sciences. In 2014, he was awarded the Volvo Environment Prize and is a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher.

This event is hosted by the Graduate School of Geography as a part of the annual Wallace W. Atwood Lecture, which honors the founder of the Graduate School of Geography and President of Clark University from 1921 to 1946.

For more information, contact Kayla Peterson at kapeterson@clarku.edu or 508-793-7434.