photo by: Contributed photo

Pamela McElwee, a Lawrence native, is on the far right in the photo holding a computer, during a session at UNESCO in Paris, April 29 through May 4, 2019. In the photo the group was looking at items from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report projected onto a screen.

A Lawrence native was among the scientists in Paris earlier this month presenting a landmark report that the environment is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history.

Pamela McElwee, a 1988 Lawrence High School graduate and the first female Rhodes Scholar from the University of Kansas, was among the authors of the assessment report for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that was presented during a meeting at the Paris UNESCO headquarters April 29 through May 4.

The 1,880-page report warned that the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, according to a news release from IPBES.

An interdisciplinary environmental scientist, with doctorates in anthropology and forestry from Oxford University and Yale University, McElwee was one of 15 U.S. scientists nominated to work on the project. They were part of a group of 145 scientists from 50 countries who spent three years researching and writing the report. For the project, McElwee worked on a chapter that examined the experiences and outcomes of existing biodiversity and ecosystem policies at local, national and global scales, and what future policies could be adopted.

The daughter of Carl and Marge McElwee, Pamela grew up in Lawrence, where she developed interests in the natural world and also in politics. As a student at LHS, she was involved with the biology club and the debate team. The debate experience, she notes, has come in handy when arguing her points with policymakers.

Any students who are interested in careers in science should pay attention to communications and politics, she suggested.

“The image of scientists working alone in the lab is out the door,” McElwee said.

During the Paris meeting, she was one of 25 key authors presenting the basic findings to policymakers from around the globe. Speaking by telephone with the Journal-World from her home in New Jersey, McElwee said they went line by line and talked with governments to make sure their priorities were reflected in the report. It meant meeting into the early hours of the morning. She recalled walking out of the UNESCO building at 4 a.m., with the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the distance.

“This was the first global assessment report they have ever approved,” said McElwee, an associate professor at Rutgers University in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The U.S. participates actively in the IPBES, McElwee said. A delegation from Washington, D.C., attended the Paris meeting, including representatives from the State Department and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The IPBES report is different from the Paris Climate Agreement, which was adopted by 195 nations, including the U.S., in 2015 to address climate change and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2017, President Trump announced the U.S. would pull out of the agreement.

“The IPBES provides the policymakers with objective scientific assessments regarding the planet’s biodiversity and ecosystems,” McElwee said. “It’s the policy side that is difficult.”

“As an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) lead author as well as my work with IPBES I obviously think the scientific community has strongly communicated the urgency of the climate change threat, and it is a shame that policymakers choose to ignore that overwhelming evidence, particularly since the Trump administration is virtually alone in its decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement,” she said.

Working on the report has been a labor of love for McElwee, who said it’s volunteer work that has kept her from her own research. According to her webpage, pamelamcelwee.com, her research aims to “identify why people conduct certain resource use practices in different ecosystems, particularly in the context of rapid environmental change, and the ways in which these global environmental changes may, in turn, render some communities more vulnerable or impoverished.”

McElwee is the author of “Forests Are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam.”

Although the recent report from Paris was grim, McElwee said it wasn’t too late to turn things around. But that would require a tremendous effort.

“Overall I think the end results are positive, and the attention that the report has received … has been gratifying. Now we need to see if governments will act on it,” McElwee said.