As we somehow power into the final three months of the year I thought it important to share some updates for the publications that I have been involved in now that they are readily available and out in the world.
Working in an ever changing research landscape can be tough, but I think it is important to reflect on the really interesting work that you can be involved in. The scope of the methods, topics and journals that these papers are associated with, really reflect the myriad of work that we undertake in order to address the impact of modern slavery and its connections to environmental degradation and climate change. This is something that is really exciting to be involved in!
Below are the three papers that I have been involved over and that have been published so far in 2021, available with a short summary. Its fabulous to get to work alongside and collaborate with such a range of researchers across the world on a variety of topics and methods as described here.
As part of a scoping review, we identified and ranked a series of academic and grey literature to assess the modern slavery-environmental degradation-climate change nexus in relation to the the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Identifying and coding for the connections between SDG target 8.7 (end modern slavery) and the environmental SDGs will support the development of future research and enable the gathering of evidence to support decision-making, as well as moving beyond data limitations which the antislavery space often face. This paper aimed to understand the feedbacks between modern slavery and the environment, their directionality, and identify areas for potential collaborative action, as well as areas where potential conflict may occur whilst working to end modern slavery by the 2030 deadline. All whilst protecting the environment and mitigating climate change impacts.
You can read a summary of the articles main themes for free via the Delta 8.7 Forum.
Boyd et al. (2021). Informing action for United States SDG target 8.7 and interdependent SDGs: Examining modern slavery from space. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-14.
This article includes the final part of analysis that was contained within my PhD, and supports the work undertaken by a vast team of scholars who have analysed the brick kilns of South Asia over a number of years.
The paper applies a variety of remote sensing, Earth Observation and machine learning techniques to assist in understanding the extent and prevalence of modern slavery in the sector, and its potential environmental impact that may be associated with such labour exploitation in this sector. Such findings are assessed in reference to the SDGs by providing support to not only target 8.7 - which aims to end modern slavery by 2030 - but also those that address the impacts of urbanisations (SDG 11 and 12), environmental degradation and emissions (SDGs 3, 14, and 15), and climate change impacts (SDG 13).
This paper is available open access and can be read here.
Tichenor Blackstone et al. (2021). Risk of forced labour embedded in the US fruit and vegetable supply. Nature Food, 2, 692-699.
This paper takes an novel approach to begin addressing risk within a whole food system by assessing the US fruit and vegetable supply and the agricultural sectors risk of forced labour. This embedded risk is important to assess as the agricultural sector has one of the highest incidences of forced labour, and such risk can be exacerbated in the US (and countries from which it imports) as a result of low margins, labour scarcity and inadequate labour protections. As part of this paper we applied a new forced labour risk scoring methods and integrated multiple previously disparate datasets to account for risk. Whilst there is a broad level of risk across fruit and vegetable commodities, there are a small number that account for the highest levels of risk overall. This paper provides an interesting analysis from which to expand knowledge to other geographies, commodities and sectors.
You can find more information about the paper here, as well as the accompanying commentary in the journal about the article.
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