Projects Undertaken by the School

1. Just GLOBE Project (2024–2025)

This project focuses on global bioeconomy transitions and critically examines environmental justice, power relations, and socio-ecological inequalities within forest and land management systems.
Drawing on political ecology, decolonial, and feminist perspectives, the research explores governance dynamics that shape resource access and reinforce or challenge power asymmetries in forest policy.

2. Fueling Violence to Fueling Peace: Charcoal and Environmental Justice in East Africa

Cambridge University, UK | June 2020 – November 2022
This collaborative research initiative brought together experts from Cambridge University, ICRAF, Makerere University (Uganda), and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The project examined the politics, history, and ecology of charcoal production across East Africa.

Achievements and Responsibilities:

• Designed a study investigating how community-led charcoal practices can transform charcoal from a driver of conflict into a pathway toward environmental justice and sustainable peace.

3. FAO Study on Policy Conduciveness for Charcoal Sector Interventions in Africa

FAO Africa | June 2022 – December 2023
The project assessed how national energy, forestry, and environmental policies across Africa create enabling conditions for sustainable interventions in the charcoal sector.

Achievements and Responsibilities:

• Evaluated the extent to which Ghana’s national energy and environmental frameworks support sustainability-driven reforms in the charcoal sector.

4. Sustainability and Traceability of Cocoa in Ghana

Tropenbos Ghana & National Development Foundation, Ghana | February 2019 – November 2019

Achievements and Responsibilities:

• Analyzed political, economic, and ecological drivers of cocoa encroachment in protected forest reserves, highlighting implications for deforestation and land-use governance.

• Assessed the effectiveness of cocoa traceability and sustainability mechanisms in Ghana, connecting local practices to global supply-chain accountability.

5. The Responsive Forest Governance Initiative (RFGI)

2011 – 2014
Coordinated by CODESRIA (Dr. James Murombedzi), University of Illinois (Prof. Jesse Ribot), and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (Dr. Gretchen Walters).

RFGI was a 4-year research and conservation program aimed at strengthening the representation of forest-dependent communities in local environmental governance across Africa. The initiative involved 33 research associates from 12 African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, and Mozambique. It focused on improving equitable forest governance and responsible natural resource management through research in areas such as land tenure, climate change, decentralization, and gender.

6. Global Conservation and Livelihood Security Workshop

Nairobi, Kenya | 2022
Presented research at the workshop “Global Conservation and Livelihood Security: Navigating Complexities of Rural-Urban Telecoupling in the Emergent Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic”, organized by Connor Cavanagh (University of Bergen).