Dr. Festus Asaaga

Environmental Social Scientist

As a praxis-oriented Environmental Social Scientist, my research focuses on advancing better understanding of the interdependence and synergies between human, animal and environmental health with a view of improving policy outcomes for safeguarding livelihoods, health and well-being. Through this interdisciplinary engagement, my research revolves around three key inter-linked foci: health, agriculture and environment with climate change as an underlying cross-cutting theme particularly in developing contexts. Under these three broad themes, I specifically focus on political ecology of endemic and emerging zoonotic diseases within a ‘One Health’ paradigm, land tenure systems and sustainable resource management, climate change adaptation and science-policy communication. I am currently working on two-interdisciplinary projects exploring the socio-ecological drivers of (re)emerging zoonotic disease vulnerability in the Western Ghats region of India. My previous DPhil research at the University of Oxford examined the dynamics of land tenure and sustainable land management in Ghana.