Dean Current
Community based natural resource management; sustainable market based conservation and livelihood improvement; natural resources economics; sustainable development
Background & Expertise
Dean Current is adjunct professor in UMN’s Department of Forest Resources and director of the Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management (CINRAM), an interdisciplinary center connecting social, biological, economic and natural resource expertise with community, agency and private sector partners. Dr. Current has extensive experience in Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia. For the past 20+ years he has been working with community forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in northern Guatemala. He brings more than 50 years of experience in community-based natural resource management, forestry and agricultural systems, economic feasibility analysis, adoption of conservation innovations and work with Indigenous and forest communities internationally. His background combines natural resource management, economics and anthropology, to better evaluate both technical feasibility and social-cultural fit of development and natural resource conservation interventions.