Susan Charnley in Tanzania

Susan Charnley, MA ’89, PhD ’94, is an environmental anthropologist whose research focuses on natural resource use and management among rural producers and landowners. She has conducted research in many rural areas of the Americas and Africa: with indigenous peoples in the rain forests of Panama and in villages of western Alaska; with livestock herders and community forest enterprises in East Africa; with forest peoples in West Africa; and with forest and ranching communities in the western United States. She has been the author or co-author of ~150 publications relating to these topics. For the past 21 years, Susan has worked as a research social scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland, Oregon, where she currently lives. She has led or co-led several Stanford Travel-Study trips to East Africa previously, and is very much looking forward to returning to Tanzania with this seminar. In her lectures she will introduce the peoples and cultures of Tanzania; explore the pros and cons for local communities of Tanzania’s national park model of conservation; and present innovative, alternative approaches to conservation underway in Tanzania today that aim to increase the social and economic benefits of conservation for local communities.