Graduate Student, School of Geography and the Environment
Senior Hulme Scholar
Brasenose College
Thesis Title: The Political Ecology of Human-Elephant Interactions in India
Prof Sarah Whatmore
Dr. Paul Jepson
About
Maan's interest in conservation began as he was growing up outside Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India. He has a broad range of research interests, the central idea of which is to develop a biocultural approach to conservation biology, merging natural and social science perspectives to bring new insights to existing theory and practice.
His areas of interest and current projects include:
(1) Man-animal conflict: examining the ecological and social causes of conflict, particularly in South Asia;
(2) Conservation beyond protected areas: Maan is currently developing an interdisciplinary project on Fig trees in Assam, examining the role of figs in species dispersal and how this might be affected by the landscape and cultural context. This is in collaboration with Aaranyak, a biodiversity conservation organisation in northeast India;
(3) Surrogates in biodiversity: this is a continuation of his MSc research on elephants as flagship species and the agency they have in conservation. He is also interested in the ecological role of surrogates such as umbrella species and their relation to habitat connectivity;
(4) Sampling Biodiversity: currently working on a project that aims at comparing different sampling methods for butterflies. Planned work in the future includes examining how parataxonomists and local knowledge may be used for biodiversity assessments;
(5) Media and conservation: looking at the role of the media and visual representation in conservation, and how practitioners might benefit from engaging with these institutions. He was awarded the D&E Zemenides Distinction (1st Prize) for his presentation on Media representations of human-elephant conflict at the Green College Welfare Conference, Oxford in 2008.
Contact Information
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/graduate/research/mbarua.html
