vanier

Research Profile: Brent Loken, Resource and Environmental Management

January 20, 2012
Print

Congratulations to Brent Loken, who was recently awarded both the Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship and Vanier Canada Graduate PhD Scholarship to pursue his research in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University.

Brent has lived and worked overseas since 1994 in countries such as Syria, Pakistan, Bolivia, Tanzania, Taiwan and Indonesia. Recently, Brent founded an NGO, Ethical Expeditions, that is working in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo with the indigenous Wehea Dayak community to help build a sustainable social-ecological system.

This summer, Brent is in Borneo leading a biodiversity study of the unexplored 38,000 hectare Wehea Forest and assisting with an ethnoecological study with the Wehea Dayak community. Both studies are part of a resilience analysis of the Wehea social-ecological system. He is also leading a group of 12 university students from across North America on a field school in Wehea.

Brent’s PhD research will investigate the resilience and sustainability of social-ecological systems in Borneo. He is interested in the configuration of variables or factors that lead to sustainable resource use. To that end, he is examining factors such as governance, ecology, culture and policies using Elinor Ostrom’s social-ecological systems framework as a guide and tools such as social-network analysis.

Additionally, he will investigate how REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation) is impacting and may continue to impact local communities who are implementing this program to help protect their forests.

January 20 Update

Courtesy of SFU Public Affairs and Media Relations, a roundup of Brent's research in the news around the world!

The discovery by SFU student Brent Loken of a monkey so rare it had been feared almost extinct was an instant hit with news media—with our monitors spotting 228 stories around the world within hours of the first news release.

SFU news release (from Dixon Tam, PAMR, with video and photos): http://at.sfu.ca/ruFIYD

 

A few samples of coverage:

  • The Vancouver Sun: “The humidity was oppressive and the leeches insufferable as an expedition led by Simon Fraser University PhD student Brent Loken waded into the jungles of the Wehea Forest in eastern Borneo. . . .  With remote cameras set up in the forest near two mineral licks, Loken had hoped to obtain photos of the elusive and little known clouded leopard.
        What he got was a monkey—the Miller's grizzled langur—so rare that scientists consider it to be teetering on the edge of extinction. Even rarer, the discovery occurred where the monkey had not historically been documented.
        ‘We knew we had something special,’ Loken, 40, recalled Thursday in an interview. ‘We knew it was unique because it is a very distinct-looking monkey.’" Full story: http://at.sfu.ca/LcpzXh
  • The Associated Press (in the Washington Post): “Forests where the monkeys once lived had been destroyed by fires, human encroachment and conversion of land for agriculture and mining and an extensive field survey in 2005 turned up empty.
        “For me the discovery of this monkey is representative of so many species in Indonesia," Loken told The Associated Press by telephone.
        “There are so many animals we know so little about and their home ranges are disappearing so quickly,’ he said. ‘It feels like a lot of these animals are going to quickly enter extinction.
    Full story: http://at.sfu.ca/tMGwmX
  • BBC News: “‘Our findings confirm that indeed this monkey still lives in the forests of Borneo and we found that its range extends farther inland than scientists had previously thought,’ said PhD student Brent Loken from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. "This gives us hope that we may still be able to find large enough populations of this monkey to ensure its survival.’" Full story: http://at.sfu.ca/HqiVDN
  • The UK’s Daily Mail: “Brent Loken, from Simon Fraser University, Canada, said: 'While our finding confirms the monkey still exists in East Kalimantan, there is a good chance that it remains one of the world's most endangered primates.'
        “'I believe it is a race against time to protect many species in Borneo. It is difficult to adopt conservation strategies to protect species when we don't even know the extent of where they live.'” Full story: http://at.sfu.ca/FpTpRw
  • The science website of Wired.com: “‘Locals knew they lived in this forest but had no idea what they were looking at. When we saw them, we were shocked,’ said conservation scientist Brent Loken of Simon Fraser University, co-author of a study published online Jan. 20 in the American Journal of Primatology.
        “Little is known about the grizzled langurs, scientifically known as Presbytis hosei canicrus. Loken and his colleagues will have a prime opportunity to study the exceedingly rare monkeys, but they will have to move quickly.
        “‘There’s still intense debate of whether or not the Indonesian government will grant legal protection status for Wehea (a rainforest preserve),’ Loken said. ‘You could say this is very good timing for the rediscovery.’”
    Full story:     http://at.sfu.ca/smSJbc
  • Scientific American: “Two teams of researchers—working independently of each other—have located two new populations of the animals in Wehea Forest, 150 kilometers inland from their previously known locations.
        “Stephanie Spehar, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, was in Wehea studying the behavioral ecology of the area’s other primates . . . when one of her students, Eric Fell, captured photos of a primate they did not recognize.
        “Eight kilometers away, a research team led by Brent Loken, a PhD student at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, had set up camera traps hoping to capture images of the elusive Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi). Instead, they also found images of a primate they did not recognize.
        “Spehar and Loken, who each work with the local Wehea Dayak community to help preserve the forest, compared notes and concluded that they had observed the same species.” Full story: http://at.sfu.ca/ajJjuW
  • Epoch Times: “‘It was a challenge to confirm our finding as there are so few pictures of this monkey available for study,’ Loken explained. ‘The only description of Miller’s Grizzled Langur came from museum specimens. Our photographs from Wehea are some of the only pictures that we have of this monkey.’” Full story: http://at.sfu.ca/JgTRKp
  • Agence France Presse: http://at.sfu.ca/EiTKeS
  • South Asian News Agency: http://at.sfu.ca/ryaaEH
  • The Guardian (UK): http://at.sfu.ca/OpPUPm
  • CBC News: http://at.sfu.ca/CmXzii
  • Toronto Sun (QMI) news service: http://at.sfu.ca/cmhjjx
  • Huffington Post: http://at.sfu.ca/btYgNW
  • International Business Times:  http://at.sfu.ca/MZiVMx
  • Sci-News.com: http://at.sfu.ca/TLiKje
  • EarthTimes.org: http://at.sfu.ca/HomOol
  • PlanetSave.com: http://at.sfu.ca/ANPaDN
  • American Journal of Primatology news release: http://at.sfu.ca/miNaAR

Tags: achievements; student profiles; environment; resource & environmental management;

Comment Guidelines

*
No comments yet

Search the Graduate Studies website

Print

Defences and Events

  • Brian Uher-Koch, MSc Thesis Defence, Biological Sciences
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    May 21, 2013
    Supervisor Dr. Ronald Ydenberg Thesis Title: Latitudinal and seasonal variation in non-breeding survival of surf and white-winged scoters
  • Joshua Newman, PhD Thesis Defence, Political Science
    5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
    May 22, 2013
    Location: SFU Harbour Centre, The Repap Policy Room (1425) Title: The Governance of Public-Private Partnerships: Success and Failure in the Transportation Sector Abstract Since the economic crises of the 1970s, the political climate in many developed countries has been reoriented from a focus on the public provision of goods and services to an emphasis on curbing government spending, reducing taxes, and limiting bureaucracy. As a consequence, alternative service delivery arrangements, in which non-government entities and private sector corporations are involved in public service delivery, have become increasingly popular in the last 30 years. The term “governance” is now commonly used to signify this shift away from a traditional hierarchical mode of government to a more horizontal environment of policy formulation and implementation. For many supporters of alternative service delivery, increased freedom for the private sector is regarded as the key to successful governance. Public-private partnerships (P3s) are a family of alternative service delivery mechanisms that allow the private sector to finance, own, and deliver goods and services to the public through long-term contractual arrangements with governments and other public sector agencies. P3s fit comfortably into the logic of alternative service delivery, which implies that by removing some – but not all – elements of the public sector and replacing them with some – but not all – aspects of the private sector, a balance between public sector accountability and private sector efficiency can be struck. However, this presents an inherent conflict, as the public sector is viewed simultaneously as the problem and as the solution to improving public service delivery. This inherent conflict in governance arrangements can sometimes lead to governance failure, a phenomenon that is not sufficiently understood. First, I show that governance failure can have negative consequences for the state and society. Then, I examine two case studies in P3 delivery of transportation infrastructure, the Canada Line in Vancouver, Canada and the Sydney Airport Link in Sydney, Australia, to determine how governance failure occurs and how it can be avoided. These two cases have similar technical parameters and political motivations, but in the Canadian case, where the public sector demonstrated policy leadership through the fostering of policy networks, through bounded-rational policy learning, and through a collaborative institutional approach to project implementation, successful governance was achieved. By contrast, the Australian case, in which the government was not substantially engaged in the partnership, resulted in governance failure. From an analysis of these two cases I conclude that public sector policy leadership is essential to the prevention of governance failure.
  • Adhi Susilo PhD Education Thesis Examination
    10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    May 30, 2013
    No Description

    • Download .ics