Position
Lecturer
Contact Information
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4266-2753
Location
Nelson Mandela University, Madiba Rd, Glenwood AH, George, 6529
Dr James George Sekonya is a Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Conservation Management and the SRU.
As a human geographer, George's research interests lie in the human-nature interactions, ecosystem services, and social-ecological systems - with expertise interactive governance of resource-based livelihoods and wildlife management and conservation. He has worked in areas of environmental and development planning consulting, wildlife conservation, and science education. These experiences have distilled his research interests in the transformative and sustainable conservation approaches to natural resource commons for improving household livelihoods and resilience in rural and peri-urban contexts. He is currently collaborating in research supervision on student projects in human-wildlife conflict, biodiversity-based livelihoods and their governance, and landscape governance arrangements.
In the School of Natural Resource Science and Management, George teaches modules in Environmental Education, Community Conservation and Principles of Sustainability at Diploma, Advanced Diploma, and Honours programmes, respectively. This shapes the ways in which students theorise and conceptualise the multiscale complex society-nature interactions towards sustainable social-ecological systems in the global South. He has guest-lectured to students in the Master's programme in Rural Development and Natural Resource Management in the Department of Urban and Rural Development at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and to students in CHARM-EU Master's Programme in Global Challenges for Sustainability hosted by University of Pretoria’s Hans Hoheisen Wildlife Research Station at Kruger National Park. Some of George's outreach engagements include providing commentary and analysis around environmental and sustainability issues on the current affairs radio show Lesedi FM.
Klaver, M.; Currie, B.; Sekonya, J.G.; Coetzer, K. (2024). Learning through Place-Based Implementation of the UNESCO MAB Program in South Africa’s oldest biosphere reserve: a case study of the Kogelberg biosphere reserve. Land, 13, 455.
https://doi.org/10.3390/land13040455