In this episode, Michael speaks with Nathan Truitt, Executive Vice President of Climate Funding for the American Forest Foundation. Nathan works in support of AFF's Family Forest Carbon Program, which it implements in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy. The program is designed to enable small-scale forest landowners to access carbon markets and credits. Together, Michael and Nathan talk about the goals of the program and how it meets the primary challenges that any such program faces, namely ensuring that real and lasting impacts on carbon storage and sequestration are made through the interventions that it supports.

References:

Nathan's background and bio: https://www.forestfoundation.org/who-we-are/people/nathan-truitt/

More information about the Family Forest program: https://www.forestfoundation.org/why-we-do-it/family-forest-blog/

More information about the permanence trust: https://www.forestfoundation.org/permanence-trust/

In this episode, Xavier Basurto, a former guest of the show, joins Michael to interview Fikret Berkes and Nicole Franz. Fikret is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Manitoba. He is a legend in the field of the commons and social-ecological systems, with some of his most well-known works included Sacred Ecology, Coasts for People, and Navigating Social-ecological Systems. Nicole is a Research Scholar at the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University. She has over two decades of experience working in intergovernmental organizations, namely the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome as well as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris

Michael asks Nicole and Fikret’s about their new edited book entitled Governing for transformation towards sustainable small-scale fisheries, which is open access and published by the FAO. The book was written in support of the FAO's Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, and provides a human-centered, interdisciplinary approach to managing fisheries in a complex world. It addresses challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and privatization by advocating for a shift from top-down, single-species management to cooperative, adaptive governance systems that incorporate the knowledge and needs of resource users. During the interview, Michael and Xavier also take the time to discuss Fikret’s long career as a key contributor to the literatures on the commons, social-ecological systems and small-scale fisheries governance.

References:

Berkes, F. & Franz, N. eds. 2025. Governing for transformation towards sustainable small-scale fisheries. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd4289en

Website of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication. https://www.fao.org/voluntary-guidelines-small-scale-fisheries/en/

In this episode, Divya speaks with Sean Fox and Gregory Randolph about urbanization and how it is unfolding amid global shocks and affecting inequality.

Sean Fox is a Professor of Geography and Global Development at the University of Bristol. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of global urbanization, the political economy of urban governance, and sustainable city futures.

Gregory Randolph is an Assistant Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech. His work focuses on how local economies and urbanization patterns are being reshaped by 21st-century transitions namely technological, energy and demographic transitions, with a particular focus on inequality.

Together, Sean and Gregory offer rich interdisciplinary insights that challenge conventional understandings of urbanization, showing that urbanization is not just about the growth of cities or a straightforward shift from rural to urban. Rather, it's a geo-demographic transformation that is deeply embedded in political, social, and economic processes.

The conversation also sheds light on the hidden stories of urbanization in the global south for example, the stories of migration in the indian state of Bihar where Gregory has been working, deindustrialization, regional divergence, and the hollowing out of labor markets and how these processes contribute to interpersonal and inter-place inequalities.

This episode was recorded at a time when massive wildfires in Los Angeles were making headlines everywhere, prompting a timely question for our guests: What should planners be thinking about as they rebuild cities after disasters?

Both Sean and Gregory voiced serious concern about the increasing frequency and scale of natural disasters and how such events are amplifying pre-existing inequalities. They emphasized that recovery and rebuilding cannot be the task of planners alone. It must also be a political project—one that demands bold, inclusive, and forward-thinking political leadership committed to building cities that account for vulnerability, address structural inequalities, and prioritize resilience for all.

Sean and Gregory are both compelling storytellers, and their work offers a grounded and timely lens on how urbanization is evolving in a world marked by rising uncertainties and deepening inequalities, and I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to engage with them and their brilliant & relevant scholarship

References:

Fox, S., & Goodfellow, T. (2022). On the conditions of ‘late urbanisation’. Urban Studies, 59(10), 1959-1980.

Randolph, G. F., & Currid-Halkett, E. (2022). Planning in the era of regional divergence: place, scale, and development in confronting spatial inequalities. Journal of the American Planning Association, 88(2), 245-252.

Randolph, G. F., & Storper, M. (2023). Is urbanisation in the Global South fundamentally different? Comparative global urban analysis for the 21st century. Urban Studies, 60(1), 3-25.

Fox, S., & Wolf, L. J. (2024). People make places urban. Nature Cities, 1(12), 813-820.

Fox, S., Agyemang, F., Hawker, L., & Neal, J. (2024). Integrating social vulnerability into high-resolution global flood risk mapping. Nature communications, 15(1), 3155.

Randolph, G. F. (2024). Does urbanization depend on in-migration? Demography, mobility, and India's urban transition. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 56(1), 117-135.

Randolph, G. F., & Deuskar, C. (2024). Urbanization beyond the metropolis: Planning for a large number of small places in the global south. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 44(1), 279-291.

Randolph, G. F. (2025). Planning the “Ruralopolis” in India: Circular Migration, Survival Entrepreneurship, and the Subversive Non-Farm Economy. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 45(2), 305-317.