I am a human ecologist interested in community-based conservation through customary governance of natural resources and the environment. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Studies and a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Studies (specializing in Human Ecology). Since 2017, I have been a PhD Researcher of the program in Environmental Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain, under the supervision of Dr. Pablo Dominguez. My PhD project has been funded by the French BIODivMeX Project, the EXPLORA Project of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the María de Maeztu Program for Unit of Excellence at ICTA-UAB, and a National Geographic Grant (EC-221R-18).
I am examining the relevance of Indigenous People and Community Conserved Areas (hereafter ICCAs) in rural Kenya with a special focus on the pastoral ICCA of Mwanda-Marungu in the Taita Taveta County. At the same time I am assessing whether heritization procedures may help conserve, protect and support these systems. In fact, these ICCA systems have generally been identified as important livelihood holders, conservatoires of biodiversity and pools of strong cultural identities, which have demonstrated to be relatively resilient to different socio-environmental changes and have a strong developmental potential.