Mallika Sardeshpande

I am a social-ecological systems scientist, working on the human dimensions of biodiversity and global environmental change. My primary mission is to understand and envision how cities can be better designed to enable biodiversity and humans to flourish together. I do this by investigating global evidence, integrating theory and practice, co-designing locally specific solutions, and synthesising feeback for policy and planning.

Biodiversity

I grew up in biodiversity hotspots in India, where I also guided nature tours to wildlife reserves and the Himalayas. My research took me to Costa Rica and South Africa, where I looked into different models of biodiversity conservation. I recognised that biodiversity conservation was not just about the resource, but also the relations people have with it, which could be cultural, economic, social, or personal.

Cities

The place where these relations play out most evidently is the city. A city commands multiple users of the same structure, demands multiple functions from the same space. A park for some needs a lawn and benches, for others needs some trees and bees. Any questions on sharing space with biodiversity are most relevant in cities, where over half the world now lives.

Design

Biodiversity can be designed into cities, through participatory methods and landscape architecture. My work involves designing species into spaces and spaces into places using local biodiversity and knowledge. This is usually done in collaboration with local residents and planners, combining information from different disciplines, to develop real or potential landscapes.

Ecology

Ecological theory and principles underpin all my work. I enjoy interrogating landscape form/structure/function, motives and behaviours (ethology), life history (autecology), and big-picture patterns (macroecology), to find applications for urban ecology. I also incorporate a social-ecological systems perspective, as humans are keystone species in cities.

Forestry and Greening

Urban greenspaces and forests are the most managed and possibly also the most utilised biodiversity in cities. This is the area much of my research has focused on, looking at how people use and manage greenspace, producing recommendations for practice. More recently, I am exploring how more-than-humans use urban greenspace, and how greenspace effects interact with urban blue and grey infrastrucutre.

Governance and Management

The long-term sustainability of any space, designed or wild, relies on governance and management. I do research on the various forms this can take, including mutli-stakehodler collaboration, biocultural stewardship, rewilding and multispecies agency. This theme extends beyond urban ecology to the work I also do in other fields (below).

Health and Wellbeing

I have a BSc in Zoology, an MSc in Conservation and Rural Development, and a PhD in Environmental Science. This gives me a strong foundation in biology, an economic perspective on ecology, and a social and systems approach to natural resource management. My research on health and wellbeing therefore includes physiological, socio-economic, and more recently, cultural indicators of health and wellbeing.

Indigenous Peoples

I have had the privilege of working with Indigenous Peoples in South Africa and India. We have co-designed participatory research projects to plant indigneous agroforestry species (amaMpondo farmers in South Africa), and to understand the effects of agricultural interventions on indigenous agroecology systems (Saora farmers in India). I am also doing research on how indigneous knowledges, beliefs, and practices inform agriculture and food systems.

Agriculture and Food Systems

During my doctorate, I found a number of useful species people forage for, so for my postdoc, I tried to see if these species could be cultivated. It was a wonderful few years designing urban agriculture and forestry pilots, but also doing food systems reasearch, tracing the full arc from agriculture to nutrition, and the policies and mechanisms that facilitate it in India, South Africa, and the UK. Needless to say, I continue to work on agriculture and food systems in Indigenous, urban, national, and international contexts.

Science, Policy, Practice, People

I very much enjoy translating science into its implications for policy, practice, and the public. I do so by co-developing and disseminating research tailored for policy and practice, but also by synthesising across these domains, and writing for the public. I am an associate editor with Cities and the Environment, Ecological Solutions and Evidence, and Ecology and Society, renowned peer-reviewed ecological publications which welcome high quality scientific and practioner work in a variety of formats.