Birgit
Schmook
Senior Researcher
El Colegio de la Frontera Sur
Birgit Schmook works as a researcher in Ecosur (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur), Mexico, in the department for the Observation and Study of the Land, Atmosphere and Ocean. She holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Tropical Agriculture from the University of Hohenheim, Germany and a Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University, USA. She has participated in numerous projects focusing on human-environment relations and land use change. Her interests are on smallholder behavior in Mexico, with special emphasis on shifting cultivation systems, labor migration and its relation to environmental changes in southern Mexico and Nicaragua, the causes and magnitude of tropical deforestation, the social and physical impacts of Climate Change and more recently food security and land tenure regimes.