Environmental science and policy
Reconciliation of Conservation and Development
Global human population will continue to grow over the next four decades. The ensuing demands for water, food and energy will intensify land-use conflicts, contribute to carbon emissions, and exacerbate threats to natural ecosystems and wildlife. It is therefore imperative that we develop ways to balance our growing consumptive needs with environmental protection. This is particularly exigent in the developing tropics where population growth has been most rapid, the people are poorest, and biodiversity is richest and yet most threatened globally.
I seek to assess the environmental and socioeconomic implications of pursuing alternative land-use and development options that reflect diverse societal priorities, including food and biofuel production, carbon storage and sequestration, conservation of forests, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and economic development.
By evaluating the tradeoffs among these partially competing priorities, I develop land-use decision-support tools for developing-country policymakers to reconcile these objectives on the bases of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and technical constraints and considerations within individual societies and landscapes.
Research topics
Species-area models
Species extinctions
Environmental impacts of biofuel expansion
Tropical ecology
Interdisciplinary
Food security
Sustainable development
Trade-off and scenario analyses
Conservation science and policy
