Myint Zaw, winner of one of this year’s ‘Green Nobels’, the Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia, will speak at Resource Politics 2015, the title of this year’s STEPS Centre annual conference.

Journalist and social activist Zaw launched a national movement that successfully stopped construction of the hydroelectric Myitsone Dam on Myanmar’s treasured Irrawaddy River, despite heavy government scrutiny and restricted use of tools like email or social media. Watch a video about his work (on YouTube).

Zaw (Crawford School of Public Policy) will be talking about the key challenges for policy and practice in the areas of resource politics and social justice alongside Jenny Franco (Transnational Institute), Nick Hildyard (The Corner House), Ravi Agarwal (Toxics Link) in a plenary session chaired by Suman Sahai (Gene Campaign, India).

This is just one of the many exciting and absorbing discussions that will take place over two and a half days at the  conference which hopes to help unpack assumptions, question simplistic prescriptions and debate alternatives about the politics of resources and pathways to sustainability.

The conference will present research evidence from varied locations revealing multiple pathways of change, linking conceptual challenges of understanding ‘resource politics’ with institutional and practical dimensions, from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is hoped this debate – with academics, practitioners, policymakers and activists taking part – can provide the basis for open and balanced debate about future options. Read more about the conference on the event’s dedicated website.

Registration for the conference is now closed, but you will be able to follow along with debates via social media using the hashtag #resourcepol and we will be posting a variety of relevant resources on the Resource Politics site. An updated programme will be available on the website shortly.