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Maia Dedrick

Education: PhD ’19, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Cornell Adviser: John Zinda (CALS)
External Partner: U Yits Ka’an (Mexico)
Themes: Increasing Food Security, Reducing Climate Risks

Forest Conservation and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods in Yucatán, Mexico

Maia Dedrick is a 2022 Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research considers historical trajectories that have shaped the sustainability of agricultural livelihoods and landscapes. As an archaeologist, she has found that centuries of colonialism in southeastern Mexico undermined food systems and sustainable livelihoods, and late colonial reforms set into motion dynamics that continue to play out in contemporary processes of globalization.

The research will identify strategies to mitigate climate change, promote and evaluate biodiversity, and ascertain long-term trends in human settlement, plant cultivation, and climate to detect management strategies that were successful in the past. Maia will collaborate with advisor John Zinda (CALS) and external partner Organization U Yits Ka’an in Mexico. The farmers of Tahcabo will then consider these examples as they craft a conservation management plan. This project will be conducted with and for Tahcabo community members and will center on the voices of town residents throughout the research process.

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