The project is carried out by researchers from different academic backgrounds with extensive experience working on shifting agriculture, rural development, social forestry, forest ecology and ecosystem services.

Read some of our interviews with Project members and collaborators here:

Research Team

Grace Wong
Project leader

Grace Wong is a natural resource economist and has carried out research on the political and social-ecological dynamics in forest, development and climate change governance. Her first foray into fieldwork was in the forest frontiers in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo almost 25 years ago for her Master’s thesis, which examined livelihoods of swidden farmers living in and around conservation areas. Her current research at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature focus on social-environmental justice in forest frontiers, with a particular interest on power relations, precarity, gender, and agency (resistance) – and come full circle back to Sabah, as one of five research sites in the FairFrontiers project.

Research Gate

Google Scholar

Stockholm Resilience Centre

Alimata Sidibe
Researcher

Alimata is working on Module 2 and is leading the field work on land use and ecosystem services. She is from Mali and graduated with a PhD from Department of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University. She has field experience in West Sub-Saharan Africa, where she examined air pollutants emission and exposure sources and their relationship with anthropogenic activities and health.

Research GATE

Andi Patiware Metaragakusuma
Researcher

Kusuma is from Indonesia and completed her PhD in Rural Development at Ehime University, Japan. For her PhD, she examined the socio-economics of communities linked to environmental issues in North Luwu Regency, Indonesia. More recently, she has carried out studies on transdisciplinary communities of practices (TDCOPs) to overcome the mercury pollution caused by artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) activities in Gorontalo, Indonesia with the RIHN SRIREP project.

Research Map

Wai Phyoe Maung
Researcher

Wai is from Myanmar and has a PhD in Area Studies from Kyoto University. He has conducted research on tropical forest management, and the diverse livelihoods of local people in rural areas. He has field experience in the forests of Myanmar, Korea, and Japan, and is passionate about exploring the intricate dynamics of local communities and forest management.

Research map

Azwar Azmillah Sujaswara
Research Associate

Azwar is the project’s Research Associate in Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection. He is from Indonesia, and graduated from Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Agriculture, where he specialized in Forest and Biomaterial Science. Currently he is a GIS, Remote Sensing, and UAV Specialist at ALGM Solution, based at IPB University. He has contributed to various projects including Rainforest Alliance Indonesia as an independent GIS and Remote Sensing consultant.

google scholar

Ayami Kan
Research Associate

Ayami provides administrative support for the project. She is also involved in policy and discourse analysis of forest and land policies in Sabah and Sarawak. She has a MSc in Environment and Development Studies and has research experience in the field of development policy, with a focus on agrarian communities in Asian countries.

Masayo Iwano
Secretary

Masayo provides accounting and administrative support as the project secretary. She is from Gunma Prefecture, Japan.

Collaborative Researchers

Maria Brockhaus University of Helsinki

University of Helsinki

Google Scholar

Thilde Bech Bruun University of Copenhagen

Research Gate

University of Copenhagen

Aristide Chacgom Green Development Advocates

Green Development Advocates

Nyein Chan Kyoto University of Advanced Science

Research Gate

Kyoto university of advanced science

Kelvin Egay Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Research Gate

Noboru Ishikawa Kyoto University

Kyoto University

Gordon John PACOS TRUST

pacos trust

Christine Lain Forgotten Parks Foundation

forgotten parks

Ole Mertz University of Copenhagen

Research Gate

University of Copenhagen

Moira Moeliono CIFOR–ICRAF

Research Gate

Google Scholar

CIFOR

Blaise-Pascal Ntirumenyerwa Mihigo University of Kinshasa

Research Gate

Jules Fortunat Nkongolo Mukaya Center for Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development in Southern and Central Africa

Daisuke Naito Kyoto University

Research Map

Muhammad Alif K. Sahide Universitas Hasanuddin

Research gate

Universitas Hasanuddin

Shoko Sakai Hong Kong Baptist University

Research Gate

Hong kong baptist university

Odirilwe Selomane University of Pretoria

Research Gate

Google Scholar

Maria Tengö Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University