Robert Fisher

Robert Fisher is an anthropologist. His PhD research was a study of human ecology, focusing on strategies for adapting to drought in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan. He specialises in social and political ecological aspects of natural resource management, particularly involving community forestry. After working in Nepal with the then Nepal-Australia Forestry Project in the late 1980s, he taught at the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, before becoming Deputy Director of the Regional Community Forestry Training Center in Bangkok from 1997 to 2001. He has carried out research or consultancies in a wide variety of countries, including Nepal, India, Mozambique, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Liberia and Ghana. Recent publications include "Linking Conservation and Poverty Reduction: Landscapes, People and Power" (Fisher et al, 2008. Earthscan) and the edited volume "Community Forestry in Nepal: Adapting to a Changing World" (edited by Thwaites, Fisher and Poudel , 2018 Earthscan). He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast involving research on community forestry in Papua New Guinea.