Agroecology, Biodiversity Conservation and Rural Livelihoods in Tropical Landscapes; Participatory Action Research (PAR) in Central American Shade Coffee Landscapes
My research and teaching efforts have focused on developing and applying interdisciplinary approaches that analyze interactions between agriculture, livelihoods, and biodiversity conservation in tropical landscapes. This work aims to integrate natural and social science concepts and methods, drawing strongly from the fields of agroforestry, landscape ecology, and agroecology, as well as development geography, political ecology, and rural sociology. As a native of El Salvador, I have chosen to invest most of my energy in the Central American region, but my research and teaching endeavors have also taken me to South America and Europe.
As part of my desire to bring research into action, and with the support of a group of Salvadoran researchers, we formed Advising and Interdisciplinary Research for Local Development and Conservation (ASINDEC). ASINDEC is a local, non-profit foundation with the aims to conduct participatory action research (PAR), as a strategy to support conservation and livelihood improvement efforts of coffee farmers in El Salvador and Central America. ASINDEC is sister organization of the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) , a U.S. based, non-profit organization aiming to support improved marketing, PAR, and north-south networks with farming communities in Central America and Mexico.
Research interests: agroforestry, agroecology, indigenous knowledge, Latin America, tropical ecosystems, interdisciplinary analysis of agroecosystems, Costa Rica, Panama, homegardens.
Contact V. Ernesto Mendez by email: vemendez@gmail.com, Ernesto.Mendez@uvm.ed
 PLEASE LINK TO CURRENT WEB SITE: http://www.uvm.edu/~emendez/
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