Services

University of Edinburgh

John Blyth holds a BSc and PhD in Forestry from the University of Aberdeen. He spent five years as a Land Husbandry Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Malawi, before joining the University of Edinburgh as Lecturer in 1979. He lectures and organises courses on agroforestry, sustained yield forestry, forest mensuration, forest planning and harvesting, marketing and utilisation. His main research interests are the management of irregular structured forest stands and the management of farm woodlands. Between 1988-1991 he was Forestry Research Consultant on the World Bank funded Addis-Bah Forestry Development Project, Ethiopia.

Rose Clarkson is a Resource Management specialist with around twenty years experience of research and practice. She holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Plymouth and MScs in Resource Management from the University of Edinburgh and Ecology from Aberdeen . She has worked in six African countries with long-term employment in the Sudan and The Gambia. Her main experience includes: community forestry & agroforestry; design and facilitation of livelihood projects for rural women in West Africa; and planning, monitoring & evaluation of projects in developing countries and the UK. Rose was an adviser and Co-ordinator for the ECTF contract for forestry advice to the Joint Funding Scheme (DFID) and Manager of the Darwin Initiative Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (Defra) until 2003. She has recently completed a number of project evaluations and short research contracts and has produced two successful EU bids for the Forestry Commission Scotland. She is a member of the Technical Committee of the Darwin M&E programme and part-time Manager of the Clyde Valley Woodlands LIFE project.

Richard Ennos holds a BSc in Genetics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Liverpool. After completing his PhD he spent a year at the University of Georgia as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, followed by three years as a University Demonstrator in the Genetics Department, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He joined the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management as a Lecturer in 1983, where he is responsible for teaching courses on genetics in ecology, genetic variation and improvement of crops, forest pathology and forest tree improvement. His research is concerned with the integration of population genetics into ecology with particular emphasis on forest ecosystems. Current interests include the use of DNA markers to study genetic variation and gene flow in forest tree species, the ecological genetics of interactions between trees and their fungal parasites and the genetic management of native tree species.

Peter Furley holds an MA in Geography specialising in Geomorphology from the University of Oxford and a DPhil in Soil Science from the University of Oxford. In 1962 he joined the Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh, currently Professor of Tropical Biogeography, where his specialities include tropical soils, soil-plant community relationships and resource evaluation and land development in the tropics. He was Professor of Ecology at the University of Brasília between 1976 and 1979. He has led numerous field projects, principally in South and Central America, with inter-disciplinary research groups. Present research projects are located in Brazil, Zimbabwe and Belize (where he has participated in research for over 35 years). He has written and edited six books including a standard text on Biogeography. He also teaches courses on pedology, tropical soils and land evaluation, tropical biogeography and development and GIS and natural resource evaluation in the developing world.

John Grace holds a BSc and PhD in Botany from the University of Sheffield. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the Institute of Biology, and President-elect of the British Ecological Society. He is the Professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Edinburgh, and since 2000 has been the Head of the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management. His main interests are in the role of forests in the global carbon cycle. He has been the leader of an NERC consortium to measure the carbon budget of the Brazilian rainforest, and he is a participant in the Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia. He is also a co-ordinator of an EC project to evaluate the carbon fluxes over European forests (Carbo-Age), and has advised government agencies on issues of carbon sequestration by vegetation in the context of climate change.

Guy Hilton is the Director of MSc Studies in the Schools of Forestry and Ecological Sciences, as well as the Academic Director of Tropag Forestry Courses within the School of GeoSciences. Holding a BSc in Forestry and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, he started his career with the UK Forestry Commission before going overseas for eighteen years, most of which were spent in the tropics. He joined the University of Edinburgh in 1989 and has been responsible for the creation and initiation of three MSc degree programmes, one of which has been established in collaboration with five other European universities, as well as a number of teaching modules. He has also been involved in the planning and logistics of two undergraduate forestry programmes in Africa as well being appointed External Examiner for a Community Forestry degree in the UK. Before returning to the UK he spent ten years in Papua New Guinea where he was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Forestry at the University of Technology. There he was involved in the evolution of the degree programme and the development of a number of courses and facilities as well as working with government and private organisations in both commercial management and community projects. He has extensive experience in forest management in Southern Africa and Asia-Pacific, in addition to research work in South and Central America, South and South East Asia and Australasia. He has carried out consultancy work in Papua New Guinea, Zambia, Kenya and Indonesia. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters of the UK, the Commonwealth Forestry association and a number of other professional societies.

Vikki Hilton is an Education and Training Consultant who is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh and holds a B.Ed (Bristol) and an M.Ed (Edinburgh). She has eighteen years experience in both education and forestry, working in Africa, Canada and Papua New Guinea, as well as extensive travel and study tours in over 30 countries. Since returning to the UK in 1989 she has been involved in the initiation and management of specialist courses for overseas students in the School of GeoSciences, including annual 3 month courses in Tropical Forest Management and Planning, Tropical Agroforestry, Education in Forestry and Natural Resources, Tree Improvement, Training of Trainers, Extension in the Tropics and Women in Development. She was also responsible for initiating and managing the biannual Participatory Appraisal (PA) workshops and Environmental Conflict Resolution workshops offered by GeoSciences as well as being the PA link person for Scotland. With interests including education in developing countries, gender issues and social and community aspects of resource management, she is involved in teaching in short courses and postgraduate programmes in GeoSciences, the Scottish Agricultural College, University of Stirling and the University of Birmingham. She has also been involved in PA's overseas and in Scotland in a range of areas from conservation to access and community woodland planning.

David Howard is a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interests focus on development issues and the social geography of Caribbean societies, with a particular emphasis on ethnicity, migration and urbanisation. Present research projects are located in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Australia and the United States. He has previously acted as a consultant on human rights for Christian Aid (Latin America and the Caribbean) and worked with EndaCaribe and Ciudad Alternativa in the Caribbean. He holds an M.A. in Geography, an M. Phil. in Latin American Studies and a D.Phil. in Geography from the University of Oxford. Before joining the University of Edinburgh in 2000, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Geography, University of Oxford and visiting research fellow at the City University of New York and the University of Melbourne.

George Hughes holds an MA in Geography from Trinity College Dublin and postgraduate town planning qualifications from the Universities of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt. He specialises in tourism planning. He has been project co-ordinator for a technical co-operation programme in Pakistan serving as visiting Professor at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore. He was formerly Director of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning's Programme in Planning Studies (Developing Countries), at the University of Edinburgh, before joining the Department of Geography. He has contributed to technical co-operation programmes in Sudan, Brazil, Mexico and Guyana. Recent research has concentrated on tourism and environmental sustainability in Belize.

Paul Jarvis holds a BA in Botany from the University of Oxford and PhDs from the Universities of Sheffield and Uppsala in Woodland Ecology and Tree Physiology, respectively. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Scientific Society of Uppsala and the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, as well as the Institute of Chartered Foresters. In the 1960s he spent 4 years working at the University of Uppsala, the Royal Agricultural University (Ultuna) and the Royal College of Forestry (Stockholm) gaining experience of Scandinavian forestry. This was followed by a period of 15 months at the CSIRO Division of Land Research, Canberra, which has led over the years to a total of 3 further years in Australia, largely in the Divisions of Plant Industry and Forest Research, as well as 8 months in the New Zealand DSIR Division of Horticulture and the Forest Research Institute (Rotorua). After 9 years as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Botany at the University of Aberdeen, he became Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Edinburgh in 1975. Over the past 23 years he has led research teams working on forest related topics including most recently the carbon sequestration and evaporation of water in relation to global environmental change in the boreal forest in Saskatchewan, temperate forest in Scotland and Mediterranean oak forest in Portugal. His interests lie firmly in the area of the measurement of carbon fluxes and changes in carbon stocks in forests and the development of carbon management strategies for the conservation and enhancement of carbon stocks in forests to comply with the Kyoto protocol.

Peter Jones obtained a BSc in Zoology from Exeter University and a DPhil in Zoology from the University of Oxford. From 1969 to 1972 he was a bird ecologist to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of Botswana, followed by six years as a Senior Scientific Officer at the Centre for Overseas Pest Research, ODA, working on bird pests in Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia. He joined the University of Edinburgh in 1979 and is now Senior Lecturer in Wildlife Ecology, teaching courses on behavioural ecology, animal population biology, conservation and wildlife management. His current research projects include a study of the migration strategies of Palearctic and African birds within Africa and the conservation and evolutionary history of the avifauna of the Gulf of Guinea Islands of Spio Tome and Principe. He is also engaged in a three year research consultancy with the Natural Resources Institute to build a predictive model of the migrations of the bird pest Quelea quelea in southern Africa, to be used for forecasting bird damage to cereal crops.

Douglas Malcolm holds a BSc and PhD in Forestry from the University of Edinburgh. Between 1954 and 1961 he worked as a District Forest Manager in the UK Forestry Commission. In 1961 he joined the University of Edinburgh as Lecturer in silviculture. His teaching and research have concentrated on forest environmental relations with detailed studies in spruce and pine forests. His main research interests include temperate forest regeneration and ecology, and reforestation and soil conservation in many different forest types. From 1979 to 1986 he was Editor of Forestry and from 1988 to 1990 President of the Institute of Chartered Foresters. From 1987 – 1990 he was Head , Department of Forestry and Natural Resources in the University of Edinburgh and until 1996 was Convenor of the School of Forestry, Institute of Ecology and Resource Management (now within School of GeoSciences). In 1993 he became the Project Coordinator for the three-year ECTF DFID Programme "The Management of Forestry Projects, China". In the same year he was also appointed as a Trustee of the Scottish Forestry Trust and chairs the Research and Projects Committee. Dr Malcolm was awarded an OBE in 1994 for services to forestry. Since retiring in 1996 he has continued research on the genetic variation of native tree species in Scotland.

Tim Malthus holds a BSc and Diploma of Science in Zoology from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and a PhD in Limnology also from the University of Otago. After completing his PhD he spent one and half years at the Centre for Limnology, in The Netherlands working on remote sensing of freshwater ecosystems. Following three and half years as a post-doctoral fellow in the Environmental Science Department the School of Agriculture, University of Nottingham researching remote sensing of vegetation systems, he spent three years lecturing in Environmental Sciences at the University of Wolverhampton. He joined the Department of Geography at Edinburgh in 1994. He is currently holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Remote Sensing and researches the application of remote sensing techniques for monitoring (semi-) natural vegetation and aquatic systems, with an emphasis on high spectral resolution optical techniques. Specific projects have included the monitoring regeneration of Caledonian forest systems in Scotland, the influence of phenology on change detection (Scotland) and high spatial resolution satellite mapping of coral reef and seagrass ecosystems (Caribbean). These methods use a combination of mathematical modeling, ground-based spectroradiometric measurements and analysis of airborne or satellite data. He teaches specific courses in remote sensing and image processing.

Patrick Meir is a Lecturer in Biogeography in the School of GeoSciences at Edinburgh University. His initial experience in tropical development was in sustainable logging and social forestry projects in Costa Rica and Nepal. His subsequent research in forest ecology and forest ecosystem processes has been based in Cameroon, Brazil and Peru, as well as in the UK. One main strand of research aims at understanding the carbon and water cycles of Amazonian rain forest and how they interact with climatic change and climatic variability (e.g. El Niño) over long and short timescales. Patrick is also a lead member of a transdisciplinary consortium addressing climate change and land use-related threats to biodiversity and other ecosystem properties in the Peruvian Andes, a globally important biodiversity 'hotspot'. Patrick has a BA in Pure-and-Applied Biology from Oxford University and a PhD in Ecological Science from Edinburgh University.

Maurizio Mencuccini has been a Lecturer in silviculture at the School of GeoSciences since 1997. He previously was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University (USA) from 1995 to 1997, and a research associate at the Italian Forest Research Institute from 1991 to 1992. He holds a BSc in Forest Sciences, an MSc in Forest Planning and Management and a PhD in Forest Ecology from the University of Florence (Italy). He has worked on the dynamics of forest ecosystems, and undertaken studies on eco-physiology of forest trees and ecosystems, more recently on carbon sequestration by forest ecosystems. He had previously worked on tree mast seeding behaviour and population dynamics in forest trees, the physiological ecology of native desert shrubs in the American deserts and on leaf-level physiology of common beans. He has worked in international projects with scientists from Europe, USA and Brazil. 

John Moncrieff holds a BSc in Geography from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Nottingham. From 1983 to 1984 he was a mathematical modeller at the Air Pollution Division of the Warren Spring Laboratory, Stevenage. Since 1985 he has been a Lecturer in the School of GeoSciences where he is now Reader in micrometeorology. He teaches courses on land-atmosphere interaction, environmental physics and resource survey. His main area of research interest is in land-atmosphere interactions, in particular the measurement and modelling of the exchange of radiatively-active trace gases such as carbon dioxide and methane between forests and the planetary boundary layer. He has worked on projects in Kansas, Canada, Niger, Florida, the Amazon and Scotland.

Robert Muetzelfeldt holds a BA in Zoology from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Behavioural Ecology from the University of Edinburgh. He joined the School of GeoSciencest as a Lecturer in 1976, where he teaches courses on modelling, knowledge-based systems and computer-based data handling. His two main research interests are: software tools to support the process of building and running ecological models; and the ecological applications of Artificial Intelligence. His research projects include: the design and development of software tools for ecological modelling; the computer-based representation of ecological knowledge; and the qualitative modelling of ecological interactions. He has been involved in developing models of forest dynamics for the ECTF DFID Indonesia Tropical Forest Management Project. His current projects include the modelling of human decision-making and land use change at the forest margin.

Martyn Murray holds a BSc in Zoology from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Zimbabwe. From 1974 to1980 he was the Yvonne Parfitt Fellow at the University of Zimbabwe conducting studies into the behavioural ecology of African antelope. Between 1980 and 1985 he was an SERC Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate at the University of Cambridge investigating sexual selection in fig wasps and the co-evolution of wild figs and fig wasps with field studies based in Malaysia. From 1985 to 1992 he was the Nuffield Research Fellow in the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Cambridge studying community ecology of herbivores and the causation of long-distance migration of wildebeest in Serengeti National Park. In 1992 he established his own company, MGM Environmental Solutions Limited to provide consultancy services in wildlife and protected area policy and management, with particular reference to developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In 1993 he was appointed as Visiting Fellow to ICAPB at the University of Edinburgh. When not involved in the evaluation, monitoring and design of international biodiversity conservation programmes, he is currently writing a popular account of the relationship between Man and Nature that looks into the causation of human-wildlife conflicts. He is also engaged in an investigation of species diversity in African ungulates and in a study of migration in Mongolian gazelle.

Caroline Nichol gained a BSc in Ecological Science with Honours in Environmental Science from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD "Remote Sensing of Photosynthetic Light Use Efficiency" also at the University of Edinburgh. She currently holds a joint position with the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and the University of Edinburgh and has been investigating the use of remote sensing for estimating plant photosynthesis in an African savanna. She has spent time at a number of research institutes including Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche, Italy, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, USA, and the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre, Botswana. She has also been involved in field campaigns in Scotland, Italy, USA, Brazil, Siberia and Africa.

Graham Russell obtained his BSc in Ecological Science from the University of Edinburgh, and his PhD "Crop Evaporation and Soil Water Status" from Nottingham University. From 1974 to 1978 he was a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh investigating the effect of wind on grasses. He became a Lecturer in the Department of Agriculture in 1978 and in 1992 Senior Lecturer in the School of GeoSciences. His research interests are in predicting the effects of weather, soil and management on plant performance at scales ranging from the plant to a region. Current work includes knowledge based systems; the significance of roots in cereal crops; the development of sylvopastoral systems; crop calendars; drought and crop growth; and agricultural sustainability. He has travelled widely in Europe and has experience of Alaska and Mexico.

Neil Stuart holds a BSc and PhD in geography from the University of Leeds. Since 1988 he has lectured at Edinburgh, specialising in approaches to solving land and water resources problems using the methods of remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and field survey assisted by GPS. He undertakes training both in Edinburgh and at overseas client sites, in the design and delivery of short courses in GIS, GPS and remote sensing, where the focus is mainly for environmental problem solving. He has reviewed and advised on the development of educational programmes at institutions in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore and recently undertaken consultancy on GIS applications for natural resources for UNDP in India. He has been involved in numerous scientific expeditions to Belize and has run workshops and short courses in Australia, Austria, Belize, Finland, Mexico and the Philippines, contributing expertise in remote sensing, GIS, GPS and hydrology to multi-disciplinary groups.

Neil Thin is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology in the School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh. He has 13 years of experience in working regularly as a social development adviser to international development agencies (particularly UK-DFID but also OECD-DAC, Strategic Partnership for Africa, and scores of international NGOs). His research, training, and consultancy work focuses on social and environmental policies, civil society, and approaches to evaluation and learning. Experience in the forestry sector includes: special adviser on social development to the DFID Forestry Research Programme since 2000; co-management of research on Joint Forest Management in India, 1995-1998 (book Branching Out due out 2001 with OUP, co-authored with Nandini Sundar and Roger Jeffery); strengthening social development components in the DFID-funded Indonesia Forest Management Project (Kalimantan and other parts of Indonesia 1992-94) and in the Karnataka Western Ghats Forestry Project, India 1991-95; social development adviser to DFID's Environmental Research Programme 1994-99; global review of NGO roles in participatory forest management for NRI/DFID in 1996; field reviews of NGO forestry projects in Kenya and Tanzania (1991) and Peru and Brazil (1996).

Paul van Gardingen holds a BSc and PhD in Plant Physiology from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) where his thesis concerned the growth of native forests following logging.  He has worked extensively on ECTF projects in South East Asia and was the scientific co-ordinator of the research project of the first phase of the DFID funded Indonesia-UK Tropical Forestry Management Programme (ITFMP). His individual work on the ITFMP initially concentrated on describing regeneration processes in Dipertocarp forests and the impacts of logging on forest ecology. Follow-on activities in Indonesia included acting as silvicultural consultant to the DFID ITFMP and EU funded Berau Forest Management Project, both of which aim to develop integrated systems for sustainable management of Indonesia’s forests. From 1997-2003 he managed a project funded by DFID's Forestry Research Programme that has developed improved simulation models for growth and yield prediction for moist tropical forest systems using permanent sample plot data from Indonesia and Malaysia. In addition to his work in Indonesia, he has active research links with organisations in Malaysia.

Copyright © 2005 ECTF.