Research interests/expertise

I am interested in the political ecology of natural resource management and biodiversity conservation, particularly in the context of community-based conservation and payments for environmental services (PES) schemes. My current research examines new efforts to mitigate climate change through reductions in emissions that result from tropical deforestation and forest degradation in Southeast Asia, with a focus on Cambodia and Indonesia. This entails regular fieldwork at the forest frontier, where I investigate how community livelihoods and resource rights are interacting with the emergence of new markets for 'forest carbon'. I am particularly interested in the politics and practice of transnational biodiversity conservation. This was the subject of my PhD thesis, which was an ethnography of a high-profile international conservation project in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia.

Current projects

• Improving governance, policy and institutional arrangements to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (Project leader Luca Tacconi, funded by ACIAR).  I am investigating the opportunity costs and land tenure implications of avoided deforestation for small-holders and communities in Riau and Papua.
• Research collaborator on Australian Research Council Discovery grant: The political ecology of forest carbon – Mainland Southeast Asia’s new commodity frontier? led by Dr Sango Mahanty, The Australian National University

Publications and other contributions

• Milne, S. 2012 ‘Chut Wutty: Tragic casualty of Cambodia’s dirty war to save forests’ New Mandala – New perspectives on Mainland Southeast Asia, April 30th
• Milne, S. and Ouk, L. 2012 ‘A Not-so-perfect Match? Community experiences with the coupling of avoided deforestation and agricultural intensification in upland Cambodia’. Paper for conference ‘Climate Change Mitigation with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’, United Nations University- Traditional Knowledge Initiative, Cairns 26th -28th March
• Milne, S. 2012 ‘Property relations in the context of avoided deforestation in Cambodia’.  Under revision for Human Ecology.
• Milne, S. and Adams, W. 2012 ‘Market Masquerades: Uncovering the politics of community-level Payments for Environmental Services in Cambodia’ Development and Change 43(1),133-158
• Milne, S. 2011 ‘Property relations and avoided deforestation in Cambodia.  Paper for conference ‘NatureInc? Questioning the market panacea in environmental policy and conservation’. Institute of Social Sciences, The Hague.
• Milne, S. 2011 ‘State making and forest conservation in remote Cambodia.’ Paper at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Hawaii, March 2011.
• Vickers B., Kant P., Lasco R., Bleany A., Milne S., Suzuki R., Ramos L., Pohnan E. 2010 ‘Forests and climate change in the Asia Pacific region’, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, Forests and Climate Change Working Paper 7
• Milne, S. 2009 ‘Global ideas, local realities: The political ecology of payments for biodiversity conservation services in Cambodia’. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.
• Milne, S. and Niesten, E. 2009 ‘Direct payments for biodiversity conservation in developing countries: practical insights for design and implementation’ Oryx, 43(4), 530-541
• Milne, S. 2009 ‘Putting ‘global’ conservation into practice: ethnographic insights into transnational policy implementation’, Association of American Geographers 2009 Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, U.S.A.
• Milne, S. 2007 ‘Monitoring the socio-economic impacts of Conservation Incentives Agreements in Cambodia: Research findings and definition of future monitoring protocols’, Report for Conservation International, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
• Milne, S. 2006 ‘Lessons learned from the implementation of conservation incentives agreements in Cambodia’, Society for Conservation Biology 20th Annual Meeting, California, U.S.A.

Career highlights

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