Collaborative Project (2017 to 2022)
Surfaces: an interdisciplinary project to understand and enhance health in the vulnerable rainforests of Papua New Guinea (PNG) — Funder: Sussex Sustainability Research Programme
PNG’s globally important rainforests are threatened by logging, and its health-related Sustainable Development Goal indicators are worse than all but two countries outside sub-Saharan Africa. Surfaces is mapping evidence on integrated health and conservation projects worldwide, and aims to provide a practical example in PNG’s rainforests, focusing first on neglected tropical skin diseases (specifically scabies and fungal diseases).Collaborative Project (2019 to 2022)
Integrating conservation and health in Papua New Guinea’s vulnerable rainforests — Funder: UK government Department for Environment Food
This Darwin Initiative project which aims to protect highly diverse forests in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and improve their inhabitants’ quality of life. Using conservation interventions, research, and capacity building it is: (i) enabling expansion of indigenous rainforest conservation through community health provision (ii) spreading awareness of the benefits of intact forests (iii) researching both the relationships between forest integrity and health in PNG, and the efficacy of integration of health services into forest conservation across the tropics, and (iv) training students and staff in research and conservation.Collaborative Project (2021 to 2023)
Mapping COVID-19 impacts on Papua New Guinea conservation and building a collaboration between ecology, arts, and the humanities to help preserve forests and customary land rights — Funder: UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a global centre for ecological and cultural diversity. This cross-school interdisciplinary project is (1) evaluating COVID-19 impacts on PNG biodiversity conservation, (2) supporting three indigenous conservation communities with practical COVID-19 advice and aid, and (3) developing a PNG wide action plan to sustain conservation through the pandemic. Pump-priming work will also expand our existing international partnership to include Arts and Humanities researchers from Sussex and PNG to strengthen conservation and indigenous land rights.Collaborative Project (2022)
Improving food security and protecting rainforest biodiversity and carbon stocks in indigenous communities recovering from COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea — Sussex Sustainability Research Programme
Over the past 20 years, slash-and-burn agriculture has accounted for nearly 50% of New Guinea's forest loss, with the recent increased town to rural migration triggered by Covid-19 related economic retraction exacerbating the situation further. Bringing together Sussex, IDS and in-country partner expertise in biodiversity conservation, sustainable food systems, and health, the team will carry out integrated intervention research in Papua New Guinea (PNG) with the aims of improving food security, reviving the local food economy after COVID-19 and reducing pressure on rainforests that harbour high carbon stocks and biodiversity in three indigenous rainforest communities in PNG.Collaborative Project (2023)
Supporting integration of conservation and public health in the upland forests of Bougainville and the lowlands forests of Sepu, Papua New Guinea (PNG) — Sussex Sustainability Research Programme
Building upon a fruitful 22-year collaboration on tropical forest conservation between the PI and the partner institute in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as well as on the previous successful SSRP-funded project (SURFACES), the research team will lay the foundations for the integration of health and conservation initiatives at two more sites in Melanesia: Bougainville Island’s upland forests and the lowland forests of Sepu, Papua New Guinea (PNG). This cross-school project will provide baseline data on indigenous health and biodiversity, and medical treatment of urgent cases will be provided alongside data collection.
Collaborative Project (2023)
Creating visual and policy communication and impact to build on SSRP’s successful conservation and health integration in Papua New Guinea, and our mapping of similar projects worldwide — Sussex Sustainability Research Programme |
