Project Update: Valuation of Sustainable Livelihoods with Dr. Joshua Fisher

Dr. Joshua Fisher, AC⁴ Director, currently leads multiple long-term applied research projects on conflict-sensitive resource management, with a signature one being in the Amazon region of Peru. He has just returned from the Madre di Dios region where he has been focused on ecosystem valuation. Part of this recent fieldwork included an educational element with Dr. Fisher co-instructing a summer field course on sustainable economic development.

The summer field course in Madre di Dios brought a team of MBA students from Manhattan’s College of Business and engaged them on current business practices in the complex, dynamic environment there. Dr. Fisher along with Dr. Poonam Arora, our upcoming visiting scholar, took students who have been studying conflict resolution and business management, held stakeholder engagement meetings with local communities, and worked with the team to conduct cost-benefit analysis and develop support for locally-led, sustainable business.

MBA student Sarah Schwartz says, the “field work allowed our MBA team to research and gain firsthand experience and knowledge about the people, events, and processes that we have been studying. No other method offers quite the same kind of close-up lens on everyday life, it’s complexities and its intricacies.”

Photo by Dr. Joshua Fisher; “being honest is the weakness that makes you strong…”

Read more about this ongoing project in Madre di Dios and the portfolio of projects for AC⁴‘s Environment, Peace and Sustainability Initiative here: http://bit.ly/AC4_EPS

Here’s a blog written by Sarah Schwartz, one of the students from the MBA team:
http://jaspersabroad.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-journey-through-madre-di-dios.html

Photos: All taken during recent fieldwork in Madre di Dios region of Peru and provided by Dr. Joshua Fisher.