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2nd year at Copenhagen

A specialization in Livelihoods and Governance

The University of Copenhagen delivers the Global Forestry specialisation in Livelihoods and Governance. This specialisation focuses on the contribution of products and environmental services from forests and associated landscapes in medium and low-income countries to local people’s livelihoods and the global community.

Through course work, the students will acquire thorough knowledge about local people’s use, dependence on, and governance of forests and the surrounding environment for subsistence and commercial purposes, including how official governance schemes translate into de facto practices. Students will develop skills to select appropriate tools to analyse the biophysical, socio-economic, and political outcomes of official and the resulting actual governance of resources. The graduates will be competent in identifying and discussing the importance of forest and environmental resources to people’s livelihoods in medium and low-income countries, including how decentralised governance can promote local and global sustainable development.

Main aims

  • Graduate individuals who have a thorough understanding of the conditions of rural livelihoods in a micro and macro-economic context, and are able to apply theory to the sustainable management of forests and other natural resources in indium and low-income countries; emphasis is on natural forests and decentralised (participatory) governance
  • Develop students’ intellectual, practical, numeracy, communication, information and communication technology (ICT), interpersonal / teamwork, self-management and professional development skills, in an forest-specific context
  • Equip students for a career in global forestry, development and other professions requiring an ability to synthesise concepts and ideas and to take a holistic view on the frequently uneasy relationship between local, national, and global objectives of forest governance.

Semester 3

  • 7.5 ECTS
  • Copenhagen
  • Year 2
  • Semester 3
  • Optional
  • Environmental sciences, Humanities, Integrative/inter/transdisciplinary, Tool

Content

Students can freely choose among a vast array of courses offered at the University of Copenhagen during the first teaching block. Of particular relevance for livelihoods and governance are the following courses:

  • Political Ecology
  • Applied Ethnobotany
  • Conflict (…) Read more

  • 7.5 ECTS
  • Copenhagen
  • Year 2
  • Semester 3
  • Compulsory
  • Integrative/inter/transdisciplinary

Content

The challenge of governing renewable natural resources

Despite official policies of sustainable utilisation and conservation of renewable natural resources these often end up degraded or destroyed. This happens across the world but not least in developing countries where (…) Read more

  • 7.5 ECTS
  • Copenhagen
  • Year 2
  • Semester 3
  • Compulsory
  • Integrative/inter/transdisciplinary

Content

The world is experiencing rapid and unprecedented changes, including the depletion of environmental resources. This has profound adverse effects on people and communities who rely on these resources for their livelihoods. An open question is also whether poverty drives environmental degradation (…) Read more

  • 7.5 ECTS
  • Copenhagen
  • Year 2
  • Semester 3
  • Compulsory
  • Integrative/inter/transdisciplinary

Content

Are you developing a project proposal, planning a thesis in development research or just tired of your MSc level grant applications not being funded?

Planning Interdisciplinary Research, addresses the challenges of preparing for fieldwork and collection of empirical material with an (…) Read more

Semester 4: thesis

  • 30 ECTS
  • E-learning, Fieldwork site(s), Other
  • Year 2
  • Semester 4
  • Compulsory
  • Integrative/inter/transdisciplinary

Content

The MSc Programme in Global Forestry with a specialisation in Livelihoods and Governance includes a thesis corresponding to 30 ECTS, as described in Appendix 2, to the shared curriculum at the Faculty of Science.

The thesis must be written within the academic scope of the programme. It (…) Read more