University of Western Sydney

Faculty Member, Humanities and Languages

Lecturer in Modern History and Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow

About

Greetings! I am an enthusiastic environmental historian studying the history of forestry, ecological change, trans-national botanical exchange, and biodiversity, mostly in countries surrounding the Indian Ocean basin.

Many of my early publications challenged the view that imperial environmental management programs and the scientists who coordinated them lacked an appreciation and understanding of local environmental conditions and viewed the environment in primarily utilitarian terms. This research is part of the larger process of creating a new synthesis of the environmental history of the British Empire.  My limited contribution to this historiographical development has been to challenge orthodox views by drawing upon new evidence and by offering a fresh analysis of materials.

More recently I've moved into global and ecological history. Right now I am working individually and with scientists and philosophers to grapple historically with key issues in biodiversity management, invasion biology, and intensive timber plantations. I am seeking to create an important role for historians to play in current scientific research and environmental policy making. In some cases, this requires creating a new interdisciplinary methodology, something that I am working on with colleagues.

Another project that I am doing with Gregory Barton (Australian National University), which is funded generously by the Australian Research Council, looks at how the history of climate change can inform current debates about global warming.

I am writing a book on the history and future of the world's forests. This book will offer the first global historical analysis of park and plantation models of forest management. I hope to shed light onto the complex politics, economics, and science of modern forest management. 

There are a few edited projects that I am pursuing, including editing a volume on the forestry history of South Africa. I'm also engaged with editing the World Forest History Series with Gregory Barton and we are starting an ecological history journal, with James Beattie, in the next year.

Please feel free to contact me. I look forward to collaborating and conversing with scholars of all perspectives, interests, and areas of research. I am particularly excited to work with scientists, social scientists, and people in government and industry. It is increasingly critical to have dialogue across disciplines and professions to make historical knowledge useful, and to gain critical feedback and insight into our own profession so that we can make it increasingly purposeful.

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