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Work by University of Stirling staff has contributed directly to improved wildlife resource management in the Central African region. Innovative research into the status and trends of key wildlife populations, ecological impacts, resource harvests and trade, drivers of resource use and assessing management success have contributed directly to new thinking on the issue, revisions of laws and policy and to success in attracting foreign aid for management issues. Stirling staff members now advise the Government of Gabon on resource management policies, National Park management and biodiversity issues.
As a consequence of individual and collaborative research on the 1962 International Writers' Conference, Drs Eleanor Bell and Angela Bartie (UoA 30) contacted the Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2010 with the idea of marking the 50th anniversary of this famous literary event. Acting as academic advisors to the project over three years, the work of Bell and Bartie has been publically acknowledged as providing the spark of inspiration for the establishment of Edinburgh World Writers' Conference 2012-2013, a hugely successful series of worldwide events visiting 15 countries, the global discussion representing `the greatest gathering of writers' voices ever staged' [Source 1]. Impact can be traced through three main channels: the cultural benefits to audiences in each host city (and worldwide via social media), the creative benefits to the writers directly involved (262 to date in July 2013), and the economic benefits to UK society and other host countries around the world.
Research by Dr Angela Bartie and Dr Eleanor Bell on the 1962 Edinburgh International Writers' Conference initiated a major global literary conference series in 15 countries, involving 262 writers and engaging thousands of audiences at events and online in a major debate about literature and its role in contemporary life. The 2012-13 Edinburgh World Writers' Conference was conceived after Bartie and Bell contacted the Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) early in 2010 to propose collaborative events to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Conference. This has resulted in over £700,000 in extra funding to the EIBF, the re-introduction of a multiple writer format (opening up new channels of communication amongst writers), and further underlined Scotland's status as a major player in global literary culture through its worldwide events.
Dr Jerome Lewis's research defining how to implement free, prior and informed consent has led to effective and equitable relations between indigenous forest people and FSC-certified forestry companies operating in the Congo Basin (over 4 million ha). It enabled forest people to monitor illegal logging and improve forest governance and has been adopted by forestry organisations in the region. It was instrumental in setting up the Centre d'Excellence Social which recruits students from the region to train a new generation of forest managers with the skills required to put the newly defined social principles into practice, as well as Radio Biso na Biso, a community radio station which disseminates indigenous views on local issues, logging and conservation.
Abdulrazak Gurnah's research, mediated through his novels and short stories, enriches and reshapes public understandings of empire and its consequences on an international scale. By challenging previous assumptions about empire, colonialism, migration, and diaspora, Gurnah's writing has influenced educators, educational policymakers, broadcasters and other cultural providers. Since the publication of Paradise (1994), his creative work has led to a paradigmatic shift in post-empire geography and history through which Indian Ocean studies and a global Islamic narrative have become newly visible. Festival organisers, students at all levels, and the international reading public have had their horizons expanded by his vision.