Grounding conservation and development in community rights

Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Social Safeguards, GEDSI, and Sustainable Agriculture for Human-Elephant Coexistence

Zoological Society of London (ZSL Thailand): Consultant, Social Safeguarding and Sustainable Agriculture

Advised a human-elephant coexistence programme working with farming communities in protected-area buffer zones, leading the social safeguarding and sustainable-agriculture workstreams. Designed GEDSI and FAIRER frameworks, FPIC and grievance-redress instruments, and monitoring and evaluation systems aligned with IFC Performance Standards and the World Bank ESF, and shaped the programme's nature-based agroforestry strategy and donor proposals. Contributed as co-author to a UK Pact GEDSI synthesis report on Thai agriculture and aquaculture supporting green-bond development, and conducted a thematic analysis of GEDSI policies and practices across Thai financial institutions.

Outcome: A safeguards, GEDSI, and monitoring package and a nature-based agroforestry strategy supporting the programme's coexistence and livelihood goals.

Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand

Environmental Justice Assessment, Kuiburi National Park

Tyler's doctoral research examined how protected-area conservation around Kuiburi National Park distributes costs and benefits among the farming communities living at the forest edge. Working with a local conservation NGO and Thai research partners, he assessed human-elephant conflict governance across its structural, procedural, distributional, and recognition dimensions, identifying where governance design itself produces inequity rather than where better implementation would suffice. The work also examined how alternative-livelihood and agroforestry interventions can shift risk onto farming households, and what they require to deliver fair outcomes.

Outcome: Comprehensive environmental justice assessment, three peer-reviewed publications, and assessments for a local NGO partner on program evaluation, participant justice outcomes, and vulnerability assessment.

New York State, USA

Equity and Environmental Justice in Climate Adaptation Policy

University of Colorado Boulder & The Nature Conservancy (Co-Investigator / Collaborator)

Conducted qualitative research on the equity implications of sea-level rise adaptation strategies in coastal and riverine communities. Responsibilities included designing and conducting interviews with buyout participants, residents, and community-based organizations; thematic coding and analysis; and contributing to two academic publications. The project identified the unintended social consequences of climate adaptation programs, such as flood buyouts and managed retreat, and proposed a justice-centered evaluation framework.

Outcome: Transferable toolkit to assess equity and procedural fairness in adaptation planning, since adapted for human-wildlife conflict contexts through doctoral research.

Publications: PLOS Climate (2023) · Global Environmental Change (2024)

Multi-country, Asia

Facilitating Human-Elephant Coexistence through Regenerative Agroecology

USFWS Project (Co-Investigator / Collaborator)

Interdisciplinary, multi-country study investigating how agroecological systems can transition from conflict-prone to coexistence-focused regimes by understanding and shifting human and elephant behavior. The project spans four Asian countries and examines social-ecological dynamics of human-elephant conflict using quantitative surveys, ecological monitoring, behavioral assessments, and agent-based modeling. Responsibilities included developing indicators of community tolerance, designing experimental cropping interventions, and supporting participatory research with farming communities.

Outcome: Predictive model for resilience in agroecosystems and a generalizable framework for applying coexistence strategies across human-wildlife conflict contexts.