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Jordan Wheeler
Jordan Wheeler

Jordan Wheeler

PhD student in the Department of Geography

Biography

Jordan is a PhD student in the Department of Geography. She is a recipient of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS DTP) studentship for her doctoral research on fire and protected areas. She is also associated with the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society. Jordan has a BA (Hons) in Geography and an MSc in Environment and Development, both from King’s College London.

Research

Thesis title: Addressing the misalignment between wildfire management, livelihoods, and conservation priorities. A case study exploring fire and protected areas in Área Natural de Manejo Integrado San Matías, Bolivia.

Jordan is interested in the interactions between fire, people, and protected areas in the context of coupled social-ecological systems. Her research will explore the hypothesis that wildfire can co-exist sustainably alongside protected areas without negatively impacting the state of biodiversity conservation and contributions to local livelihoods. Her research approach is interdisciplinary and will involve a combination of remote sensing, GIS, and various field-based qualitative and participatory research methods. The fieldwork, which will take place in Bolivia, will look at how fire travels across protected area boundaries, and its implications for biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods. She will also examine how transboundary differences in fire policy and practice might influence fire use and fire regime, and how these policies and practices are experienced at community level. She hopes the research outcomes will be useful for suggesting how fire governance could be better integrated with protected area governance to benefit both biodiversity conservation and community livelihoods.

PhD Supervision

View Jordan's Pure profile