Scholarship value
The MSc by Research (if relevant) and PhD scholarships include a stipend (equivalent to the Research Councils UK National Minimum Doctoral Stipend; the 2024/25 rate is £19,237, which is not taxed income). Tuition fees are covered at the home student rate. The PhD scholarship comes with a £10,000 research and training fund.
Deadline
The deadline to apply for this Leverhulme ‘Space for Nature’ Doctoral Scholars funding is Tuesday 25th June 2024.
Criteria
Eligibility
This award is open home students. To be classed as a home student, candidates must meet the following criteria and the associated residency requirements:
Scholarship details
There is more background information on the Leverhulme ‘Space for Nature’ Doctoral Scholars main page.
School of PhD registration: Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE)
PhD degree award: Biodiversity Management
Primary supervisor name: Dr Mahesh Poudyal (DICE, UoK)
Email address: m.poudyal@kent.ac.uk
Co-supervisor name: Dr Matthew Struebig (DICE, UoK)
Co-supervisor name: Dr Naya Sharma Paudel (Environment and Governance
Specialist, ForestAction, Nepal)
Project Details: Community-based forest management is seen as an effective conservation strategy while also providing tangible benefits to local communities, and more broadly contributing to global ecosystem services through biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. Bringing community-managed forests within formal conservation measures is seen as a key pathway to meet the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3 that seeks to protect 30% of the terrestrial and marine areas by 2030 (30x30 target). This project will focus on community forestry in Nepal, considered among the most successful community-based forest management systems worldwide, to investigate the impacts of formal conservation area designation in community-managed forests.
Based on over three decades of evidence on community forestry, it has been argued that indigenous peoples and local communities have proven that they can conserve nature while sustaining their livelihoods and preserving cultural practices. Furthermore, it is argued that providing these community-managed forests with formal conservation designation, such as under the other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) as part of the 30x30 target, would recognise their contribution to biodiversity contribution and will potentially bring a significant portion of land areas under formal conservation to help meet the global biodiversity target. However, there is still a dearth of research and significant data gaps on the potential implications of bringing community-managed forests under formal conservation designations from socioeconomic, ecological and governance perspectives.
The student will develop an interdisciplinary research project to investigate the potential implications of designating community forests in Nepal as part of 30x30 target. Nepal, being signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is looking to expand protected area coverage, primarily through other effective conservation measures due to limited appetite for new national park creation. With significant portion of forests under community management, they make an ideal case for conservation area expansion through other effective conservation measures. Some of the key topics the student might investigate include:
The successful candidate will have strong analytical skills and be familiar with community forestry and forest governance institutions and policies in Nepal or in another comparable setting. They will have some fieldwork experience using social and/or ecological research methods and will receive necessary training in methods they are less familiar with.
How to apply
Please apply by sending your covering letter and CV to LHScholars@kent.ac.uk and filling out our equality, diversity and inclusivity questionnaire via this link
These tasks must be completed by Tuesday 25th June 2024 at 23.55.
For informal enquiries about the project, please contact the primary supervisor directly via email.