HAMISH MAIN

I was a Geography student at Aberdeen and Liverpool Universities, and then I taught Geography at Birmingham University and at Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria before coming to Staffordshire University. My interests are mainly in the cities of Africa and Asia, and in the people who live there. Urban life is full of problems for many of them, especially for the poorer ones; where to find accommodation that won't be torn down by the authorities, how to earn an income, how to educate the children .... When these basic needs have been met to some extent, they might begin to think about how to access clean drinking water, how to escape the pollution of local air and water by transport and industry and overcrowded housing, and how to clean up their own neighbourhoods.

These are the sorts of urban environmental issue with which my research has been concerned. Most recently this has been in Calcutta, along with academics in that city. Some of the issues we've been looking at include:

-- the natural environment, its contamination by human activity, its potential for water supply;

-- how low-income communities organise their waste disposal and recycling;

-- what is being done by NGOs (non-government organisations) to help improve the city's environment;

-- how far government is willing to leave decision-making on environmental issues to communities, NGOs and private companies.

Apart from research in Nigeria and India, I have taken undergraduate fieldcourses to Tunisia for several years, and this year we are beginning a new fieldcourse to Kenya. We are planning to do some research there on tourism and the environment in Mombasa, where our fieldcourse will be based.

Dr. Hamish Main, Division of Geography, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2DE, U.K..

E-mail h.a.c.main@staffs.ac.uk
phone 01782-294106
fax 01782-747167