Name: Dr. Pamela McElwee
Affiliation:Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Contact details: Associate Professor, Department of Human Ecology
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
pamela.mcelwee@rutgers.edu
Statement of interest: I am an environmental anthropologist with additional training in geography and forestry & ecology. My research interests are in the local social impacts of global environmental problems, with my particular expertise in biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and climate change. Most of my work integrates household-level analysis of decision-making regarding resource use with an examination of global institutional practices and norms that influence environmental management, with an aim to identify why people conduct certain resource use practices in different ecosystems, particularly in the context of rapid environmental change, and the ways in which these global environmental changes may in turn render some communities more vulnerable or impoverished. I am the author of a recent book Forests are Gold: Trees, People and Environmental Rule in Vietnam (U. Washington, 2016) and coeditor of the book Gender and Sustainability (U of Arizona, 2012). I serve as the Lead of the Cultural Practices and Ecosystem Management Thematic Group for IUCN, and as a lead author of the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Geographical/topical area of interest: Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam and Myanmar.
