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A. The West Indies

I have been engaged since 1984 in collaborative research with the Department of Geography of the University of the West Indies in the field of environmental management of tropical farming systems. My input into this research has been to initiate monitoring programmes to establish environmental hazard, erosion rates and soil nutrient status under different cropping strategies. The data from these studies, together with the development of environmental hazard indices appropriate to steeply-sloping tropical hillsides, are suitable for use in forming the physical basis for resource management and development planning strategies.

The current research focus is to consider the potential effects of regional climate change on environmental systems, principally (1) hillside agriculture and environmental degradation and (2) drought and hurricane affected marginal farming.  The research to date has been concentrated in Jamaica, but has generic application.
An offshoot from this research collaboration has been four British-Caribbean Seminars under the umbrella of the RGS/Institute of British Geographers research seminar series.  Each of these has produced an edited volume and Special Issues of the journal Caribbean Geography (see Publications).

B.  Semi-Arid Kenya

Several brief field visits have been paid since late 1993 to semi-arid West Pokot, Kenya (in conjunction with 2nd Year field trip and research supervision).  The principal research direction is an investigation of the sustainability of contemporary farming systems, with particular reference to physical parameters.  This is a marginal semi-arid area, and the signs of incipient desertification are being investigated.

C.  Kumasi, Ghana

I was recently Principal Investigator of a major grant funded by DFID (£220,000) Peri-Urban Natural Resources Management at the Watershed Level: Kumasi, Ghana).  The major thrust of the research was to investigate sustainable strategies for natural resource management, developed and implemented with the full range of stakeholders.  This innovative and high-profile interdisciplinary research project has yielded several publications, and has been a major contributor to an edited volume published by Earthscan in 2006:  The Peri-Urban Interface.

D.   Amazonia