Adrian Garside brings 30 years of experience addressing violent conflicts in the central and north Africa region, the Middle East and Balkans. A former British Army officer, Strategic Planning Officer at the United Nations Headquarters, adviser to the African Union Mission in Darfur and the UK Government’s first Stabilisation Adviser in Southern Sudan, he has first-hand experience of complex crises over natural resources from military, stabilisation and development perspectives.

Adrian has spent much of the past 9 years at the interface of wildlife conservation and armed conflict in South Sudan – working with rural communities, hybrid security actors and the national Wildlife Service – in a unique tropical forest belt linking the biomes of east and central Africa. He joined the Department of War Studies in 2017 and received the Marjan Marsh award on behalf of the Community Wildlife Ambassadors, a conservation group he had established in South Sudan during the civil war.

He continues to work on wildlife conservation in conflict-affected countries including South Sudan; and advises on armed conflict and the environment.

Research Interests

• Armed conflict in Africa
• Protecting the environment in relation to armed conflict
• Wildlife Services and community rangers
• The evolution of wildlife conservation practice
• Peripheral areas and cross-border dynamics
• Localised natural resource competition

Adrian’s research focuses on the practice of wildlife conservation amidst war and armed conflict. He examines the actors involved in Protected Area management, from wildlife rangers to rural communities, hybrid security actors and armed forces; and their relationship with each other and the territorialisation of wildlife habitat. His geographical focus is the Nile/Congo watershed.

Publications

Research Article

• Pangolins in global camera trap data: implications for ecological monitoring. Hannah Khwaja, Claire Buchan, Oliver R. Wearn, Laila Bahaa-El-Din, Drew Bantlin, Henry Bernard, Robert Bitariho, Torsten Bohm, Jimmy Borah, Jedediah Brodie, Wanlop Chutipong, Byron Du Preez, Alex Ebang-Mbele, Sarah Edwards, Emilie Fairet, Jackson L. Frechette, Adrian Garside, Luke Gibson, Anthony Giordano, and Govindan Veeraswami Gopi. "Pangolins in Global Camera Trap Data: Implications for Ecological Monitoring." Global Ecology and Conservation 20 (2019): Global Ecology and Conservation, 01 October 2019, Vol.20. Web

Policy Paper

• Key Considerations: Bushmeat in the Border Areas of South Sudan and DRC. Garside, A., Bedford, J., Gercama, I., (2019), Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform Ebola Briefs, https://www.sonar-global.eu/social-science-in-humanitarian-action-platform-ebola-briefs/

Media article

• Wildlife Conservation in South Sudan’s Civil War, 3-part series of recordings from South Sudan. Adrian Garside, (October 2018), broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Today programme, and BBC World Service.
• Bringing Conservation and hope for People in Part of Troubled South Sudan. Adrian Garside, (2015), SWARA – the Voice of Conservation in East Africa, Vol 39, No.3.

Teaching

Adrian designed and teaches the ‘Conflict and Conservation’ module for the Masters programme in Conservation Science, at Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.

He teaches wildlife management courses to wildlife services, community rangers and in schools, in conflict countries.

He lectured on the Conflict and Environment module, Department of War Studies, KCL.