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Dr Aoife Bennett is Departmental Research Lecturer in the Environmental Social Sciences at ECI, SoGE. She is an interdisciplinary environmental research scientist  with expertise in the social sciences, a strong background in Political Ecology and a focus on the socio-political and environmental challenges and opportunities - particularly in Latin America and the Amazon. Her research involves a large amount of multi-methods field-based research, and always includes the most marginalized members of society as active members of her research. She is particularly interested in decolonizing research techniques and activities and working together on breaking down the North/South divide therein.

Aoife is an active member of the global social and environmental community within and outside of academia. She sits as Fellow to the Biodiversity Council at the World Economic Forum (where Aoife created the World Economic Strategic Intelligence Map for Biodiversity, Trustee for the charity Action for Conservation, as an author on the Science Panel for the Amazon (including in the Amazon Assessment Report), and as Advisor to a small indigenous charity that promotes cultural preservation in the Peruvian Amazon.

Aoife is a passionate researcher that likes to be involved in the lives of the people in the places where she works and as such is something of an activist academic she also engages in philanthropy and meaningful local capacity building and mutual aid.

Currently Dr Bennett is accepting supervision of Oxford Master's students (MPhil and MSc), as well as Recognised Students, currently enrolled in doctoral programmes. Prospective DPhil candidates should reach out to other faculty members.

Projects

Principal Investigator the interdisciplinary research project: Research at the interface of indigenous and occidental science: empirically applying an intercultural interdisciplinary mapping methodology “Non Oñamboan Joi” for assessing nature recovery potential in the Amazon. (Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery)

Principal Investigator the interdisciplinary research project: Multi-Scale, Interdisciplinary Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Values of Peruvian Amazon Peatlands (USAID, PEER cycle 9).

Principal Investigator the interdisciplinary research project: Do Communities Really Protect their Forests? Analyzing the environmental impacts and opportunities of the polity and territorial formalization of indigenous communities in Ucayali and Loreto, Peru (CONCYTEC).

Co-Investigator: Indigenous Visions for Rights-Based Approaches to Sustainability (March 2020-July 2021) Awarding Body: ICDF-SSRP - Sussex University.

Featured publications

Multi-scale analysis of deforestation and afforestation in 25 Indigenous Territories in the Peruvian Amazon (1975- 2016)

Bennett, A., Larson, A., Zamora, A., Monterroza, I: (2023) Global Environmental Change vol 81. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102695

Los bosques se regeneran en territorios indígenas titulados: Un análisis interdisciplinario multiescala de 25 comunidades indígenas a lo largo de 40 años en la Amazonía peruana

Bennett, A.; Larson, A.M.; Zamorra Ríos, A.; Gamarra Agama, S.; Monterroso, I. (2023) CIFOR, PERU. doi: 10.17528/cifor-icraf/008981

Publications

  • Bennett, A., Felipe Cadillo, Melissa M.,: (2024) Navigating Socio-Political Threats to Amazonian Peatland Conservation: Insights from the Imiria Region, Peru doi: 10.3390/su16166967
  • Bennett, A., Larson, A., Zamora, A., Monterroza, I: (2022) Forests regenerate on titled Indigenous territories A multiscale interdisciplinary analysis of 25 Indigenous communities over 40 years in the Peruvian Amazon. CIFOR, Lima.
  • McDermott, C, Montana, J., Hirons, M, Bennett, A., Hamilton R. (2022) Transforming Land Use Governance: Global targets without equity miss the mark. Environmental Policy and Governance. Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue doi: 10.1002/eet.2027
  • Bennett, A., Larson, A., Zamora, A., Monterroza, I. (2022) Forests regenerate on titled Indigenous territories A multiscale interdisciplinary analysis of 25 Indigenous communities over 40 years in the Peruvian Amazon. InfoBrief no. 358. CIFOR-ICRAF. doi: 10.17528/cifor/008387
  • Lilian Painter, Ane Alencar, Aoife Bennett, Paulette Bynoe, Camilo Guio, Maria M. Murmis, Belen Paez, Daniel Robison, Martin von Hildebrand, Valeria Ochoa-Herrera (2021) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Amazon. Amazon Asessment Report, Science Panel for the Amazon Chapter 26. doi: 10.55161/pgpn1316
  • Montag, D., Barboza, M., Cauper, L., Brehaut, I., Alva, I., Bennett, A., Sanchez-Choy, J., Sarmiento B., Valenzuela, P., Manuyama, J., García Murayari, I., Guimaraes Vásquez, M., Aguirre Panduro, C., Giattino, A., Palomino Cadenas, E., Lazo, R., Delgado, C A., Nino, A., Flores, E C., Pesantes, M.A., Murillo, J P, Belaunde, LE, Recuenco, S., Chuquimbalqui, R. Zavaleta-Cortijo, C. (2021) Healthcare of Indigenous Amazonian Peoples in response to COVID-19: marginality, discrimination and revaluation of ancestral knowledge in Ucayali, Peru. BMJ Global Health Vol 6:1 pp. 10-13
  • Bennett, A., Ravikumar, A , McDermott, C., Malhi, Y. 2019. Smallholder oil palm production in the Peruvian Amazon: rethinking the promise of associations and partnerships for livelihoods. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Vol 2. Art. 14.
  • Bennett, A., Cronkleton, P., Menton, M., Malhi, Y. (2018) Rethinking Fuelwood: People, Policy and the Anatomy of a Charcoal Supply Chain in a Decentralizing Peru. Forests, 9, 533.
  • Bennett A., Ravikumar, A., Paltán, H. (2018) The Political Ecology of Oil Palm Company-Community Partnerships in the Peruvian Amazon: deforestation consequences of the privatization of rural development. World Development Vol 109. Pp. 29-41
  • Menton, M and Bennett, A. (2018). PES: Payments for Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation? In Schreckenberg, K., Mace, G, and Poudyal (eds) Ecosystem services and poverty alleviation: trade-offs and governance. P.189-203. Abingdon, U.K: Routelage.
  • Bennett A., Ravikumar A., Cronkleton C. (2017). The effects of rural development policy on land rights distribution and land use scenarios: The case of oil palm in Peru. Land Use Policy, October 2017. Vol 70. P. 84-93
  • Comberti, C., Thornton, T., Bennett, A., Root-Bernstein, M. (2017) Climate Change Adaptation, Development and Archaeology in the Amazon Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 32 (2), 98-122
  • Lazos, E., Zinda, J., Negra, C., Bennett-Curry, A., Bloomfield, G., Balvanera, P., and Lindell, C. (2016) Stakeholders and tropical reforestation: challenges, trade-offs, and strategies in dynamic environments. Biotropica.
  • Chazdon, R., Brancalion, P.H.S., Laestadius, L., Bennett-Curry, A., Busckingham, K., Kumar, C., Moll-Rocek, J., Vieira, I.C.G. and Wilson, S. (2016) When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration. Ambio, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
  • Chazdon, R., Brancalion, P.H.S., Laestadius, L., Bennett-Curry, A., Busckingham, K., Kumar, C., Moll-Rocek, J., Vieira, I.C.G. and Wilson, S. (2016) Seeing the Definition Through the Trees: A Framework for Redefining Forests (YouTube video) 
  • Bennett, A., Malhi, Y. and Menton, M. (2013) Leakage effects in natural resource supply chains: a case study from the Peruvian commercial charcoal market. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 20(4): 336-348.