Dr Max Graham

Visiting Academic

Currently leading a project that builds local capacity to reduce human-elephant conflict in north-central Kenya.

Biography

Max Graham has worked on environment and development projects in Afghanistan, Ecuador, Gabon and Kenya. He holds an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge and recently completed a UK Darwin Initiative funded project with the University of Cambridge on which he was the principal investigator. He is currently the director of the Laikipia Elephant Project and is developing the first ever widlife conservation strategy for an unprotected landscape in Kenya for the Kenya Wildlife Service and Laikipia Wildlife Forum.

Career

2009-present: Laikipia Elephant Project, Nanyuki, Kenya
2007-2009: Research Associate, Department of Geography, Cambridge University.
2001-06: Ph.D. Research, University of Cambridge, UK
2000-2001 M. Phil. In Environment and Development, University of Cambridge, UK

Qualifications

PhD University of Cambridge 2010
M. Phil. Environment and Development University of Cambridge, 2001.
BSc Environmental Science. University of Leeds. 1999

Research

Laikipia Elephant Project

The Laikipia Elephant Project was initially funded by the DEFRA Darwin Initiative (Grant No. 741) of £260,909. The project lasts 3 years, starting 1 October 2006 and ending 30 September 2009. Since 2009 ongoing support for this project was secured through the Laikipia Wildlife Forum.

The project aims to enhance the conservation and management of Kenya's second largest elephant population (over 7,000 animals) and the ecosystem they inhabit through the implementation of an integrated and sustainable community based approach for alleviating human-elephant conflict (HEC).

Publications

Selected publications

2006. Lee, P. and Graham, M. African elephants and human-elephant interactions: implications for conservation, International Zoo Yearbook, 40, pp. 9-19.
Graham, M.D. (2007). Coexistence in a land use mosaic? Land use, risk and elephant ecology in Laikipia District, Kenya. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Graham, M.D. & Ochieng, T. (2008). Uptake and performance of farm-based measures for reducing crop-raiding by elephants Loxodanta africana among smallholder farms in Laikipia District, Kenya. Oryx 42, 76-82.
Graham, M.D., Douglas-Hamilton, I., Adams, W. & Lee, P (2009). Elephant movement in a human-dominated landscape. Animal Conservation 12, 445-455.
Didier, K., D. Wilkie, I. Douglas-Hamilton, L. Frank, N. Georgiadis, M. Graham, F. Ihwagi, A. King, A. Cotterill, D. Rubenstein, and R. Woodroofe. (2009). Conservation planning on a budget: a possible "resource light" method for mapping priorities at a landscape scale? Biodiversity and Conservation 18:1979–2000.