Shane Mc Guinness
Telephone: +353-(0)1 896
|Postal Address: Department of Geography, Museum Building, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland|
|Provisional research title: Human-wildlife conflict and wildlife value orientation effects: implications for conservation efforts in the Virunga Conservation Area of central Africa|
It is an intuitive assumption that swelling global population will exacerbate the burden placed on natural systems, especially those areas of dense biological diversity which are already subjected to high human population pressure. This project proposes furthering the evidence to support this assumption.
The Volcanoes Massif of eastern Central Africa has been chosen as the location for this study as, with high human populations coinciding with areas containing extremely rich species diversity, it has been shown in the past to react in close synchrony with both changing climate and increased anthropogenic pressure. More specifically, it has been hypothesized that edge effects, encroachment into national parks, and the proportion of this caused by climate related stresses, can directly relate population growth and climate change to increased human-wildlife conflict.
The aim of this project is to investigate the public perception and so-called wildlife value orientations (WVO) of a variety of human-wildlife interactions, focusing particularly on crop raiding, across the Volcanoes Massif of eastern central Africa.
- Conservation theory
- Human-wildlife interactions
- Sustainable development
Irish Research Council (formerly for Science Engineering and Technology - IRCSET) Embark Initiative Postgraduate Award.
Examining the implications of human-wildlife conflict and wildlife value orientations on conservation initiatives in the Albertine Rift region of East Africa(2011), Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Studies (ACES). Conservation Conflicts: strategies for coping with a changing world
Human-wildlife conflict: political ecology solutions through the crowd(2013) Conference of Irish Geographers (CIG). National University of Ireland, Galway
Africa from above: Gorilla conservation, volcanoes and GPS in Rwanda(2013) European Space Expo, Trinity College Dublin
A sample of my research:
Youtube clip showing a 3-D model fly-through of Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda and the crop raiding points collected by 25 local farmers trained in use of GPS units to collect this data for the year entire year 2012: