Resources, environment and development
The challenge:
Climate change and biodiversity loss are existential threats that are disproportionally affecting socially and economically marginalised populations around the world, making them key global development challenges. Understanding how political and economic structures and interventions influence social and environmental trajectories is essential for more effective and socially just transitions to environmental sustainability.
Three acute contemporary challenges include:
- How can increasingly ambitious climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation strategies (such as expanding protected area networks and reforestation initiatives) achieve their aims, while benefitting people and navigating difficult trade-offs?
- How can private entities, governments and local communities manage land, agricultural commodities, and natural resources (for example, water and minerals) in more socially just and environmentally effective ways?
- How can the development of key infrastructure (including roads and dams) be managed in more environmentally and socially sustainable ways?
How we are addressing it:
Our research is on focused on three main areas:
- The political ecology and political economy of natural resource management, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity conservation.
- The evaluation and estimation of social and environmental impacts of climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and natural resource management strategies, including interrogating the data justice implications of remote sensing approaches.
- Analysis of agricultural production systems, including alternative organisational systems, cooperatives and value chains, in relation to environmental and social sustainability.
Research Projects
Sustainable Forest Transitions
Johan Oldekop's project will conduct research to better understand how reforestation drivers affect forests and the communities that depend on them.
Justice in Earth Observation for Conservation
Led by Rose Pritchard and Tim Foster, the project will transform understanding of the social risks and benefits of increased use of Earth Observation in conservation.
.jpg)
Wildlife Trade Futures
Charis Enns and colleagues are seeking to understand how Covid-19 is reshaping the global wildlife trade landscape
FutureDAMS
The FutureDAMS consortium is working to improve the design, selection and operation of dams to support sustainable development.
.jpg)
Shared Lands
Charis Enns and colleagues' project explores how peoples’ relationships with each other and different species are changing as a result of rapid landscape change.
Mining and corporate social responsibility
Tomas Frederiksen's research into global governance and development impacts of the extractive sector in Africa.
Our teaching agenda:
- Global Development with Environment and Climate ChangeMSc
- Research Methods with International Development MSc
- Development Policy and Management PhD
People and publications:
Click on the names below to read their latest publications or read the latest publications from the Global Development Institute.
- Prof Bina Agarwal - Professor, Development Economics and Environment
- Dr Admos Chimhowu - Senior Lecturer
- Dr Katarzyna Cieslik - Lecturer in Global Development
- Dr Clare Cummings - Lecturer in Politics and Development Policy
- Dr Charis Enns - Presidential Fellow, Socio-Environmental Systems
- Dr Tim Foster - Senior Lecturer in Water-Food Security
- Dr Tomas Frederiksen - Senior Lecturer, International Development
- Prof David Hulme - Professor, Development Studies
- Dr Duong Khuu - Visiting Researcher
- Aarti Krishnan - Lecturer in Innovation and Sustainability
- Dr Tom Lavers - Reader in Politics and Development
- Dr Johan Oldekop - Reader in Environment and Development
- Dr Rose Pritchard - Presidential Fellow, Socio-Environmental Systems
- Dr Maria Rusca – Senior Lecturer in Global Development
- Arianna Tozzi - Research Assistant
- Prof Philip Woodhouse - Emeritus Professor
PhD Researchers and Post-Doctoral Fellows
- Lucas Alencar - Post-Doctoral Research Associate
- Armando Caroca Fernandez - Political ecology and production of space of mining waste’s sacrifice zones
- Caroline Cornier - Postcolonial Political Economy of commodity dependence and financial subordination, (francophone) West Africa
- Katie Devenish - Post-Doctoral Research Associate
- Natalia Galvis Arias - Effects of cash transfers on the adaptive and resilience capacity of households exposed to climate shocks. Evidence from Colombia
- Dhanapal Govindarajulu - Sustainable Forest Transitions
- Mariana Hernandez-Montilla - Sustainable Forest Transitions
- Judy Hofmeyr - Extractives industries and development, natural resource governance, sustainability, political ecology, and corporate social responsibility.
- Nabila Hasan - Sustainable Forest Transitions
- Sandy Nofyanza - Sustainable Forest Transitions
- Harry Quealy - Political ecology, climate politics, critical agrarian studies, water, and infrastructure
- Magdalena Rodekirchen - Post-Doctoral Research Associate
- Hilman Triandi Sukma - Biodiversity conservation and management; Social and ecological justice
- Esteban Valle-Riestra Padro - Green Extractivism', Mining Temporalities and the Governance of Critical Minerals for the Energy Transition in Latin America
- César Vicencio Vega - The discarded city of extractivism. Urban changes articulated by mining logistics
- Natalie York - Sustainable Forest Transitions
- Zhiqiang Zheng - Social-ecological relations between human interventions, environmental change, and sustainable rural development in the Global South