Doctoral Dissertation Research Harnish: Missing Links: Investigating the Socially-Differentiated Effects of Land Cover Change in a Rural Zambian Frontier

Deforestation and land cover change are pressing issues for researchers and policymakers with profound ramifications for people and ecosystems worldwide. With a deforestation rate that ranks among the highest in the world, Zambia provides a unique context from which to explore the social dimensions of environmental change. Stemming from political ecological investigations of land use/land cover change and feminist studies of development, environment, and household livelihoods, this project explores how changes in land cover differentially affect a rural Zambian community based on variations in gender- and age-based divisions of labor, household morphology, and socioeconomic status. This NSF funded component will yield understandable and accessible thematic maps that plot the distribution of environmental resources relative to informant households and attest to the diversity of local experiences of ecological change.