Will Lock

University of Sussex

Based in

United Kingdom
Europe

Will is a Lecturer in International Development and Anthropology at the University of Sussex. His research focuses on the emerging world of for-profit conservation and reforestation – tracing carbon market value flows, the production of nature and the dynamics of green capitalism. His work covers the voluntary carbon market, the use of market-based instruments in conservation and the political ecology of forests more broadly.

Will carried out ethnographic fieldwork of a REDD+ conservation and reforestation project in the San Martín region of Peru in 2017-2019, working primarily with cacao farmers implementing agroforestry models and producing Fair Trade and organic certified beans for largely European chocolate consumers. Subsequent research has analysed the link between sustainable supply chains and conservation/deforestation at forest frontiers and possible avenues for reframing ecosystem restoration, beyond carbon plantations and the sustainable intensification of commodity crops.

Will is currently researching conflicts between carbon plantations and local food production in Wales and his broader research interests include political ecology, the production of nature, neoliberal nature, ethnographies of development and conservation, agroecology and environmental justice.