Best Student Lightning Talk or Poster Presentation Award 

Jesica Murcia López is the winner of the “Best Student Lightning Talk or Poster Presentation” at the 2022 FLARE Annual Meeting for her presentation titled “Land conflicts, cattle, and the biodiversity of the tropical forests of the Colombian Amazon.” Her research is focused on improving our systems’ approach understanding with emphasis in the mechanisms behind the land use transformation and cumulative effects of extensive cattle ranching into tropical forests in protected areas in the northwest of Amazon region of Colombia.

Jesica is a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre of Environmental and Climate Science at Lund University in Sweden and a Lund University graduate of the Agenda 2030 School. Her work seeks to implement effective and integrative forest governance combining the systems thinking approach with the use of Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD) with remote sensing and GIS tools, for Integrated Spatial Planning policies.