Michael John Murphree

Michael Murphree has 16 years of experience in the field of community-based natural resource management. Born in Zimbabwe and educated in Zimbabwe and the USA, he was employed by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (Zimbabwe) in 1987 as an ecologist to work on the CAMPFIRE programme. He left the Department in 1994 to take up a position in Mozambique as Wildlife Policy Advisor through IUCN (Regional Office Southern Africa) where he was involved in the development of Mozambique’s first community wildlife management project, Tchuma Tchato.

In 1996 he became the Executive Officer of the Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group (of IUCN) – a position held until May 2002. Mr. Murphree has worked with and on community-based natural resource management projects in southern and west Africa. In 1999, he was invited by the Ghana Wildlife Division to assist in developing Ghana’s first community wildlife management programme through the establishment of Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) and continues to provide periodic inputs into this programme.

As an independent consultant based at the Institute of Natural Resources in Natal, South Africa, he has been closely involved in collating, analysing and disseminating information on community-based wildlife management systems and developing new mechanisms and approaches for project implementation. Mr. Murphree is working on policy and legislative reform issues and is currently involved in developing new approaches to communicate environmental and developmental issues through theatre and exchange visit programmes.