It’s that time of year when I’m asked by the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern to contribute to the Annual Report. It made me realise that a project stock-take is well and truly overdue, as the Geographies of Disasters team has been very busy the last six months.
An absolute highlight has been setting up fieldwork and building local connections in the six FiRES case study countries: Switzerland, the UK, Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Catalonia. Step 1 of our methodology – a survey – has now been conducted in five countries, and the online survey went live in Catalonia this week. We have commenced in-depth follow-up interviews in Switzerland, the UK, Italy and Cyprus, and are looking forward to many more insightful conversations with residents and fire/land managers in all six countries.
The team also networked and shared its experience with colleagues at conferences and with broader audiences through interviews with journalists. This includes a conversation for Fire Ecology Chats – the podcast series by the Association for Fire Ecology – following the publication of my article Coexisting with Wildfire: Strengthening collective capacity by changing the status quo, an interview with Science News in the aftermath of the LA wildfires on the complex blend of mental health challenges people face in the ashen wake of a firestorm, and an interview with ABC Radio‘s AM program who was celebrating The school where teens get fire ready.
We presented and partook in panels at the Swiss Geoscience Meeting in Basel, the UK Wildfire Conference in Aberdeen, the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers Annual International Conference in London, the WSL Forum für Wissen in Davos, and the Nicosia Risk Forum in Cyprus. This week I will also be part of a symposium on global dynamics and risks of catastrophic events at the University of Zürich as well as the PLANAT Future Forum in Basel.
Dr. Christine Eriksen 