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> Natural Resources research group

Duncan Macqueen

Principal researcher and leader (forests), Natural Resources

Duncan Macqueen is an expert on forest enterprise issues and local to global governance processes that affect forests. He is currently the team leader on forests within IIED, overseeing work under an overall goal of ‘resilient forests, prosperous people’.
Full biography

Duncan Macqueen is an experienced forest research and development practitioner. He has delivered impacts in collaborative programmes across 30-plus countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

He has been a conceptual pioneer in the design and implementation of programmes to sustain locally-controlled forest business. Impacts have included new: (i) agroforestry system improvements; (ii) funding facilities for forest and farm producer organisations; (iii) training tools and programmes for business start-up development, risk self-assessment and business incubation; (iv) labelling options for fair trade forest businesses; (v) tiered organisational structures between producer groups that aggregate product and power; (vi) effective policy advocacy positions; and (vii) knowledge and learning products for a range of audiences.

Over the last 27 years he has authored academic, practical and policy outputs covering agroforestry tree improvement, locally-controlled forest business, forest-linked organisations, value chain developments (in timber, non-timber forest products, biomass energy and ecotourism), forest climate strategies, forest governance and forest development ethics. Recent books include titles such as ‘Democratising Forest Business’ and ‘Forest Business Incubation’.

A forest botanist by training, his interests lie in ‘diverse, creative, solidarity’. By this he means work that empowers varied local groups to articulate their own hopes for prosperity, design enterprise models to pursue those hopes, and stand together to represent their hopes in policy and decision-making processes. He set up and helps manage the Forest Connect alliance that shares knowledge on how best to support locally controlled forest enterprises.  

He is currently both principal researcher and team leader of the forest team, and acts as knowledge manager within the co-management team for the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) together with partners from FAO, IUCN and Agricord.

Expertise

Forest business incubation approaches for locally controlled forest enterprises; access to finance for such enterprises; risk self-assessment processes; forests and climate action; governance tactics and approaches for improving locally controlled forestry; innovations in forest ethics.

Before IIED

Deputy programme manager for the UK government Department for International Development’s (DFID) Forestry Research Programme; DFID technical cooperation officer assigned to Embrapa Amazonia Oriental in Brazil; student of theology; research ffficer for the Oxford Forestry Institute operating in Central America.

Education
MSc in Forestry and its relation to land use from Oxford University (Magdalen College); MA in Botany from Oxford University (Magdalen College); two-year diploma in theology from Oxford University (Wycliffe Hall).

Current work

Organisational structures for business, policy representation, forest restoration and social and cultural service provision that can best serve the needs of local forest producers; access to finance for forest producer groups; prosperity for forest producer groups and the role of youth transitions to work and migration in delivering prosperity.

Duncan Macqueen's picture
Telephone: 
+44 (0) 131 300 0166
Email: 
duncan.macqueen@iied.org
Twitter: @DuncanMacqueen
ResearchGate
Google Scholar
 
Languages: English, Portuguese and Spanish (basic)

Duncan Macqueen's projects

The Poverty-Forests Toolkit: showing what forests mean to the poor

Project, Jun 2008
A woman wearing a face mask and a visor stands behind a table of vegetables selling her produce.

COVID-19 and forest communities

Project, Oct 2021
Outside view of large wooden building among trees and under a blue sky.

Cities into sinks: storing carbon in wooden architecture to mitigate climate change

Project, Oct 2021
View of a forest

Monitoring and evaluation systems for integrated community forest management

Project, Oct 2021
A scenic shot of forest with two waterfalls

Support for REDD+ readiness in Jamaica

Project, Apr 2021
The Forest and Farm Facility is now working with Ecuador forest farm producers such as this bamboo production business

Forest and Farm Facility Phase II

Project, Mar 2019
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Latest publications

Training programme: From risk to resilience, Incubating adaptive climate-proof businesses

Diversification for climate resilience. Thirty options for forest and farm producer organisations

La diversification pour la résilience climatique. Trente options pour les organisations de producteurs forestiers et agricoles

Diversificación para la resiliencia climática. Treinta opciones para organizaciones de productores forestales y agrícolas

Local climate resilience finance: how can mirage become reality?

Inception report: support for REDD+ readiness in Jamaica

View more publications by this author

 

Duncan Macqueen's blog posts

Woman in a forest holds a tree branch towards another tree

Escalating local climate resilience finance

Blog, Oct 2021
Women preparing tapioca

Tapioca tech in Togo – how producers are organising to transform lives and land

Blog, Feb 2020
Rows of small dishes containing various types of vegetable seeds, including beans and grains

Madagascar needs agroforestry businesses in its response to climate change

Blog, Sep 2019
A trolley load and shelves of cinnamon dry inside a special drying facility

Vietnamese forest and farm producers work towards more resilient livelihoods and landscapes

Blog, May 2019
Bolivian family farming organisations show a poster about their award-winning coffee business development activity at the World Rural Forum in Bilbao, Spain (Photo: Duncan Macqueen/IIED)

Modern food systems to emerge in new decade of family farming

Blog, Apr 2019
A community-owned Mexican sawmill in Oaxaca (Photo: Duncan Macqueen)

Incendiary observations from the 4th FLARE conference

Blog, Oct 2018
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Links to other sites

Innovations towards prosperity emerging in locally controlled forest business models and prospects for scaling up

World Development, August 2018

 
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