History
About the history of the UNESCO Chair for dialogues on sustainability
History
The UNESCO Chair for Dialogues on Sustainability was established in 2014 by Dr. Catherine Potvin, Professor at McGill University. The role has since been taken up by Dr. Brian Leung, who now heads the team.
Click here to view the original concept note prepared at the chair’s inception.
About the inaugural Chair
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Catherine Potvin
catherine.potvin@mcgill.ca
Dr. Catherine Potvin is Professor of Biology at McGill University, Associate Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and member of the Royal Society of Canada. She is a forest ecologist and specialist in global environmental change, including climate change and biodiversity loss. Her academic training includes a PhD from Duke University in plant ecology and postdoctoral studies in statistics at Université de Montréal. Her current research is of an interdisciplinary nature and includes socio-economic and policy aspects of land use changes. Dr. Potvin has been working in Panama since 1993 on forest conservation and carbon cycling, often in close collaboration with farmers and Indigenous peoples. She has published over 100 scientific papers in international scientific journals. Dr. Potvin has actively engaged in policymaking, serving as Panama's negotiator at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change between 2005 and 2011. In 2012, she received the Royal Society of Canada's Miroslaw Romanowski Medal, in recognition of her exceptional contribution for important improvements to the quality of an ecosystem in all aspects brought about by scientific means. Dr. Potvin is the first woman to receive this prize, which rewards, inter alia, her exceptional contribution to the development of the proposal on the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) at the international level. In the wake of the 150th anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference, Dr. Potvin was selected by "A Bold Vision" as one of 23 women visionaries for the future of Canada.
Previous flagship reports
Below, you can browse some of our earlier work. Click on a report to learn more.
