The PIF Lab works on questions related to land, food, and political ecology. Comprised of masters students, PhD students, and community members, the PIF Lab takes an interdisciplinary approach to crucial questions about peoples and forests around the world.

Research by the PIF Lab is connected by common values surrounding the role of research and researchers in forest ecosystems today.

Social and ecological sustainability
An interdisciplinary approach to sustainable relationships with forests

Power dynamics
Research that acknowledges and challenges power dynamics among peoples, ontologies, and epistemologies

Reciprocity
Research that is collaborative from inception to close, with creative outcomes that address collective needs

Members of the PIF Lab work together with community members around the world. To learn more about where and what the PIF Lab works, please explore the map below.

Research conducted by members of the PIF Lab is diverse and interdisciplinary in nature. Research themes change as students refine their research projects, join the PIF Lab, and graduate from their programs of study. In 2020, the PIF Lab is working on:

Food systems
Understanding the links between forest ecosystems and food production, food sovereignty, and food-based cultural revival

Indigenous jurisdiction
Unravelling global trends in the colonial and settler dispossession of Indigenous nations in a forest context

Non-fibre forest products
Exploring spiritual and non-fibre material values of forests (mushroom harvests, sacred groves, and more!)