AXA Chair at UC Santa Cruz funds efforts to build coastal resilience naturally

Global insurance company AXA has established the AXA Chair in Coastal Resilience at UC Santa Cruz to support the work of Michael Beck, a research professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences and the Department of Ocean Sciences. The AXA Research Fund provides the award of €1 million ($1.19 million) over five years to support Beck’s efforts to advance the conservation and restoration of coastal habitats as natural defenses against storms and climate change.

Climate change and development are degrading coastal ecosystems and increasing the exposure of communities to risks from flooding, erosion, and sea level rise. According to Beck, however, investments in coastal defenses have focused on construction of seawalls, breakwaters, and other artificial structures, while neglecting the value of reefs and wetlands as powerful natural tools for reducing coastal hazards…

Creating a shared vision of rural resilience through community-led civic structures

The dispersion of COVID-19 has been uneven from the outset, preying upon preexisting fault lines in our nation’s economic, social, and geographic landscape and systematically disadvantaging already vulnerable people and places. Governmental responses have been similarly fragmented and unequal, with federal, state-level, and citywide services and relief structures marked by inconsistency and disparate outcomes by race and place. In these times of uncertain and uneven relief, people and small businesses are increasingly turning to local organizations for relief—seeking support from the community institutions, neighborhood coalitions, and other civic structures that they know and trust…