Mud, Oil, Tea: Infrastructure Development & Wildlife Conservation in the Ustyurt Plateau by Dr Bull
Dr Bull presented his talk to the members and friends of British-Uzbek Society on 12 February 2021.
Joseph William Bull is an ecologist, conservation scientist and practitioner: currently Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Kent, Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford, and co-founder of Wild Business Ltd.
He has a BSc in Physics, an MSc in Environmental Technology, and a PhD in Ecology from Imperial College London. During Joe’s PhD he worked closely with the Academy of Sciences (Uzbekistan) and RMIT (Australia); afterwards, he went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark).
Additional personal highlights of his work to date include tropical field ecology expeditions (Peru, Malaysia), and leading a team for Engineers without Borders (Nepal). Connecting all of the above is an interest in finding practical yet technically robust approaches towards better understanding and conserving nature.
In his talk, Joe explores how nature and industry are increasingly crossing paths on the shores of the Aral. He argues that both are necessary if we are to safeguard the wellbeing of people who live in the region, and go on to discuss whether and how it might be possible to expand infrastructure whilst also protecting Uzbekistan’s spectacular wildlife.
