In conjunction with his selection as the 2018 Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar through the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS), Prof Mark Swilling’s appointment as an Associate Research Scholar in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in 2018 was unanimously accepted by the YIBS Faculty Council. This is an extremely prestigious award, and we are not aware of any African that has ever received it.
The purpose of his sabbatical at Yale will be to write a book called Just Transitions to a Well-Being Economy: An African Perspective. This will comprise 15 chapters, most of which have been drafted or published in another form already. As one of the top five publishers in the Faculty, his aim is to rework content produced over the last 24 months, and incorporate these together with new material, to compile a very ambitious book about the global sustainability transition. This will consolidate a lot of work already done, but integrated into a more coherent theoretical framework than what is possible in journal articles and reports. The trick will be to ensure it remains readable by a more popular audience.
Another highlight is that Penguin offered to publish his ‘Betrayal of the Promise’ report because they said it was written in a very accessible, easily understood way while Wits Press will publish it as a book in 2018.