Olivia Sylvester, Ph.D. (Canada), is Director of the Department of Environment and Development and Associate Professor at the University for Peace. She holds a PhD in Natural Resources and Environmental Management from the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Manitoba (Canada). She also holds an MSc in Biology from the University of Costa Rica and a BSc in Biology from the University of Calgary (Canada). Over the past decade, Dr. Sylvester’s research programme has focused on food sovereignty, agroecology, climate and environmental justice, and gender. Her research is driven by environmental justice and uses critical methodologies to achieve these goals. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and new articles and is the editor of three books. With the Bribri Indigenous Nation, she has co-produced videos on development with identity and coordinated the Huétar Indigenous Elders’ book project on cultural knowledge and practices. Dr. Sylvester is coordinator of the following Master’s programmes: 1) Environment, Development and Peace and 2) Ecology and Society.

Click here to access her Research Gate page.

Areas of Interest

• Food Security/Food Sovereignty
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Indigenous peoples’ resource access
• Gender and environment
• Research Methodologies (critical, indigenous, feminist)

Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

• Sylvester, O., Ramin, C., Serrano González, B., Hernández Mena, Z., Pérez Hernández, y Schuster-Wallace, C. (2024). Acceso y Gestión del Agua en los Pueblos Indígenas de Costa Rica: El Caso del pueblo Huetar de Quitirrisí de Mora. En prensa en Ambientico.
• Hell, F., & Sylvester O. (2023). An Ecofeminist Review of Alternative Tourism Research in the Global South. ARA: Journal of Tourism Research, 70(13), 68-87. ISSN:2014-4458
• Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Parker, J., Sylvester, O., García Segura, A., Man, Z. (2023). ‘Balancing the Books’: Research Paradigms, Funding, Ethics and Accountability in Research with Indigenous People. Debates en Sociología, Accepted and in press.
• Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Parker, J., García Segura, A., Man, Z. and Sylvester, O. (2022). Epistemic hegemonies, Indigenous methodologies and the dialectic turn. The Social Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/03623319.2022.2082175
• Little, M. & O. Sylvester (2022). Agroecological producers shortening food chains during Covid-19: opportunities and challenges in Costa Rica. Agriculture and Human Values, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10298-2
• Sylvester, O., & M. Little (2021). “I came all this way to receive training, and now I am going to be taught by a woman.” Factors that support and hinder women’s participation in agroecology in Costa Rica. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2020.1811830
• Sylvester, O., Garcia Segura, A., Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Man, Z., & Parker, J. (2020). Navigating western and Indigenous methodologies in North-South, cross-cultural research: successes and challenges. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 16(1): 45-54.
• Ashencan Crabtree, S., Parker, J., Man, Z., Garcia Segura, A. & Sylvester, O. (2019, July 03). Discover Society. Sustainability, development and devastation: new encounters in indigenous dialogues. Retrieved from https://discoversociety.org/2019/07/03/sustainability-development-and-devastation-new-encounters-in-indigenous-dialogues/
• Avalos, G., Gei, M., Rios, L. D., Otarola, M. F., Cambronero, M. Alvarez-Vergnani, C., Sylvester, O., Rojas, G. (2019). Scaling of stem diameter and height allometry in 14 neotropical palm species of different forest strata. Oecologia, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04452-7
• Sylvester, O., Garcia Segura, A. G. (2017). Ulàpeitök: Applying Bribri Indigenous teachings to an ethnobiology Ph.D. methodology. Engaged Scholar Journal 3(2): 123- 140.
• Sylvester, O., Bianco, M. Greenwood, J. and T. Mkanthama. (2017). Breaking down barriers to university-community engagement: a Master’s student led sustainable agriculture workshop for children in Costa Rica. Journal of Sustainability Education 16: ISSN: 2151-7452.
• Sylvester, O. and A. García Segura. (2016). Landscape ethnoecology of forest food harvesting in the Talamanca Bribri Indigenous Territory, Costa Rica. Journal of Ethnobiology 36(1): 215-233.
• Sylvester, O., García Segura, A. G., and I. Davidson-Hunt. (2016). Wild food harvesting and access by household and generation in the Bribri Indigenous Territory, Costa Rica. Human Ecology 44(4): 449-461.
• Sylvester, O., García Segura, A. G., and I. Davidson-Hunt. (2016). Complex Relationships among gender and forest food harvesting: Insights from the Bribri Indigenous Territory, Costa Rica. International Forestry Review 18(2): 247-260.
• Sylvester, O., García Segura, A. G., and I. Davidson-Hunt. (2016). The protection of rainforest biodiversity can conflict with food access for Indigenous people. Conservation and Society 14(3): 279-290.
• Davidson-Hunt, I. J., R. Pengelly, C. J. Idrobo and O. Sylvester. (2013). Anishinaabe adaptation to environmental change in northwestern Ontario: a case study in knowledge coproduction for non-timber forest products. Ecology and Society 18 (4): 44.
• Sylvester, O. and G. Avalos. (2013). Influence of light conditions on the allometry and growth of the understory palm Geonoma undata subsp. edulis (Arecaceae) of neotropical cloud forests. American Journal of Botany 100(12): 2357-2363.
• Sylvester, O., G. Avalos, and N. Chaves. (2012). Notes on the ethnobotany of Costa Rica’s palms. PALMS 56(4): 190-201.
• Avalos, G. and O. Sylvester. (2010). Allometric estimation of total crown area in the neotropical palm Euterpe oleracea at La Selva, Costa Rica TREES 24(5): 969-974.
• Sylvester, O. and G. Avalos. (2009). Illegal palm heart (Geonoma edulis) harvest in Costa Rican national parks: patterns of consumption and extraction. Economic Botany 63(2): 179-189.

Book Chapters

• Sylvester, O., García Segura, A. (2025) Bribri Title: Bribripa má batséitsè, In: A Sustainable Food System from a Bribri Indigenous Perspective. Book: Indigenous Wisdom and Innovations for Planetary Health and Sustainable Food Systems. Canadian Scholars & Women’s Press.
• Sylvester, O. (2025). Food security and sustainable agriculture in the 21st century: Key concepts and debates. In: Cultivating Sustainability in Costa Rica: Food Systems Cases, Challenges, & Solutions. University for Peace Press.
• Sylvester, O., McMakin, D, Benavides, W., Wen, J., & Cuadrado-Quesada, G. (2025). The State of Organic Agriculture and Agroecology in Costa Rica. In: Cultivating Sustainability in Costa Rica: Food Systems Cases, Challenges, & Solutions. University for Peace Press.
• Ramin, C. & Sylvester, O. (2024). Water and Industrial Agriculture: A case study of pineapple in Buenos Aires, Costa Rica. In: (Sylvester, Breitling, & Ramin, Eds.). Water Emergency: Case Studies and Global Perspectives. University for Peace Press.
• Sylvester, O., (2024). SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production Sheryl L Hendriks and Suresh C (Eds.), Handbook on Public Policy and Food Security. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Avalos, G., Sylvester, O., Cambronero-Quesada, García Segura, A. (2023). Patrones de diversidad, distribución, usos etnobotánicos y conservación de las palmas de Costa Rica. Leal Sander, N., Pulido Silva, M. T., y da Silva, C. J. (Coordinadores). Uso de las palmas en Latinoamérica. DOI 10.24824/978652514377.4
• Villhauer, B., & Sylvester, O. (2021). Decolonizing REDD+ for Climate Change Mitigation? A Case Study of Costa Rica’s Cultural Mediators Program. In Leal Filho, W., Luetz, J. M., & Ayal, D. Y. (Eds.) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer.
• Sylvester, O. (2020). How youth brought their water back and built long-term community adaptive capacity: A case study from Costa Rica. In Leal Filho, W., Luetz, J. M., & Ayal, D. Y. (Eds.) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer.
• Sylvester, O. (2020). Seguridad Alimentaria. En Seguridad y Asuntos Internacionales. Lozano, A. (Ed.). Asociación Mexicana de Estudios Internacionales (AMEI) y Siglo XXI Editores.
• Sylvester, O. (2019). Achieving Food Security in the Face of Inequality, Climate Change and Conflict. In Crisis, Fragility and Conflict in an Uncertain World. Rojas, F (Ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Rojas, F., Sylvester, O., Zahar, Y. (2018). From knowledge to action: supporting women in agriculture in Latin America. In Rural women around the world: 28 enlightened voices (pp. 147-154). San Jose, Costa Rica: IICA.

Edited Books

• Sylvester, O. & Little, M. (2025, Editors). Cultivating Sustainability in Costa Rica: Food Systems Cases, Challenges, & Solutions. University for Peace Press.
• Sylvester, O. (2024, Editor). Conocimientos de la Cultura Huetar de Quitirrisí. Rescate de la memoria, costumbres, y tradiciones de nuestros abuelos y abuelas. Autores: Mayores Huetar. University for Peace Press.
• Sylvester, O., Breitling, J., & Ramin, C. (2024). Water Emergency: Case Studies and Global Perspectives. University for Peace Press.
• Garcia Segura, A. 2016. Ditsö rukuö: Identity of the seeds, learning from nature, IUCN, Switzerland (Sylvester, O., Editor), https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/46562

Newspaper Articles

• Sylvester, O. (2022, Sunday November 13). Mujeres e indígenas excluidos de la ciencia. La Nación. https://www.nacion.com/opinion/columnistas/mujeres-e-indigenas-excluidos-de-la-ciencia/FEBYJFFVZRBDZNRAASNLIZRP3E/story/
• Little, M., & Sylvester O. (2020). Mujeres agricultoras retando los estereotipos de género en Costa Rica. Agroecología. http://agroecologa.org/agricultoras-que-desafian-los-estereotipos-de-genero/