QUADRAT

University of Aberdeen

General

Profile: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/m.a.pinard#research

Key Research Interests

My research is in the discipline of conservation science but also pedagogic.

My disciplinary research sits at the interface between ecology and forest use, either for management, conservation or livelihoods.  I work mainly in lowland and montane regions in the tropics, in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Ghana, Brazil and Bolivia. I am best known for my work on regeneration issues in logged forests, carbon offsets in forestry, and reduced-impact logging.  I also work on silvicultural problems related to the selection of trees for felling and retention in natural forests managed for timber.

My recent PhD students work on conservation conflicts and governance as it relates to livelihoods and natural resource use.

Recently, with colleagues in the Aberdeen Centre for Sustainability and partners in Bolivia and Brazil, we completed a project aimed to understanding how deforestation affects rural people’s well-being.  The project involved understanding rural people’s perspective on poverty and exploring how forest loss and current environmental management practice and policies relate to human impoverishment.

My pedagogic research has focused on capacity building of doctoral students and conservation practitioners, the links between learning, interdisciplinarity and natural resource management or conservation.   I also have an interest in iterative feedback, inclusive assessments, the delivery and assessment of practical skills in the biological sciences and field-based learning.