Kathryn Humphries BSc (Hons), MPhil

PhD Candidate

Kate works on the socio-politics of conservation, protected areas and community management of natural resources in Tanzania

Thesis Title: The Political Ecology of Community-Based Forest and Wildlife Management in Tanzania: Politics, Power and Governance

Biography

Qualifications

2009-2012; PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge
2008-2009; MPhil Geographical Research, University of Cambridge
2003-2007; BSc (Hons) Geography (1st Class), University of St Andrews

Awards & Scholarships

Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 funding award for PhD candidate 2008-2012
Royal Geographical Society Walton Prize (awarded for undergraduate dissertation) 2007
University of St Andrews Edwards Prize (awarded for outstanding individual research) 2007
University of St Andrews Graduates Prize (awarded for outstanding academic achievement) 2004
David St John Thomas Charitable Trust award (for community project work) 2003

Research

My research is focused upon the politics of community based natural resource management, particularly in the Tanzanian context. I examine the politics of Tanzania's policies of community-based forest and wildlife management, to consider the governance systems involved in these projects, and to explore the benefits and problems arising from these projects for the communities involved. Drawing upon work highlighting the uneven impacts of these projects and complex patterns of costs and benefits within their management systems and for the people involved, my research explores the political processes that permit, produce and maintain differential outcomes in these projects. My research compares the structures of power in place in both the forestry and wildlife sectors.

I work specifically with two case study communities in a remote part of central Tanzania called Iringa, where community based natural resource management has been implemented through Wildlife Management Areas and Village Land Forest Reserves since the early 1990s. My work explores the development of these projects and the governance structures that are being implemented in order to understand the outcomes that are being produced.

Publications

Selected publications and presentations

"Project Bias and Devolved Environmental Management: The Case of Conservation Policy in Tanzania" (in prep) Environment & Planning C: Government and Policy
"Politics and Power in the Governance of Tanzania's Wildlife and Forests", Presentation at Graduate Forum, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, December 2011
"A Political Ecology of Scales in Tanzanian Community-Based Natural Resource Management", Presentation at session 'Sustainability, Landownership and Power', RGS-IBG International Conference, August 2011
"Studying the Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management in Tanzania", Presentation at the Department of Wildlife Management, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania, February, 2011
"The Political Ecology of Community-Based Forest and Wildlife Management in Tanzania: Politics, Power and Governance", Presentation at the Faculty of Life Sciences (Forest and Landscape), University of Copenhagen, November 2010
"Whose Animals? The Politics of Power in Tanzanian Community-Based Wildlife Management", Paper presented at the European Congress for Conservation Biology, Prague, September 2009
Schmitt, C.B.,Burgess, N.B., Coad, L., Belokurov, A., Besançon, C., Boisrobert, L., Campbell, A. Fish, A., Gliddon, D., Humphries, K., Kapos, V., Loucks, C. Lysenko, C., Miles, L., Mills, C., Minnemeyer, S., Pistorius, T., Ravilious, C., Steininger, M. & Winkel, G., (2009), Global analysis of the protection status of the world's forests, Biological Conservation 142: 2122–2130
Humphries, K.E., Robinson, R.A.J., Bird. M.I., (under review), Monsoon Climate of Myanmar 1875-1939, submitted to the International Journal of Climatology, October 2009.
Coad, L., Campbell, A., Miles, L., Humphries, K. (2008). The Costs and Benefits of Protected Areas for Local Livelihoods: a review of the current literature. Working Paper. UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, U.K.

Teaching

2010-12 Supervisor Geographical Tripos Part 1A: Environment Society and Development
2011-12 Teaching Associate Programme (Higher Education Association)

External activities

Convenor, Political Ecology Research Group Meetings 2011-12
Representative on the Graduate Student-Staff Consultative Committee (Department of Geography)
Representative on the Graduate Teaching Committee (Department of Geography)
Research Associate Sokoine University of Agriculture (2010-2011)
Postgraduate Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Member of the Developing Areas Research Group
Student Ambassador for the National Trust (Cambridgeshire)