John Mumford completed a BS degree in Entomology at the College of Agriculture, Purdue University in 1974 and subsequently worked in a reseach programme of the Indiana Agricultural Extension Service on forage pest management. From 1975-1978 he was a Marshall Scholar at Imperial College London, receiving a PhD in Applied Entomology. He worked in New Zealand as a Research Fellow at Lincoln University, jointly in Entomology and Agricultural Economics, and became an academic at Imperial College London in 1979. He was initially a member of the Biology Department at Imperial College London and since 1994 has been a senior member of an evolving series of Environment departments in the College - currently as Professor of Natural Resource Management in the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP).
Research has covered many aspects of economic interest related to pest, food and biosecurity, fisheries and environmental risk management and international development, with a strong emphasis on work in developing countries. Major project areas have included work with the cocoa industries in Malaysia and Indonesia; locusts and cotton pests in Africa; fruit fly pests in Africa, the Indian Ocean, Australia, South Asia and the Mediterranean Basin; quarantine and biosecurity policy in Europe, USA, New Zealand, SE Asia and with the FAO; and the regulation of genetically modified mosquitoes with WHO. Issues to do with how management programmes face risks in the environment are of particular interest, and this has involved the extension of risk management analyses from pests to other environmental problems such as radiation decontamination and fisheries management.
Photo: Quarantine policy research has helped the US Department of Agriculture conduct efficient risk assessments to determine appropriate preventative and responsive management for exotic pests (for example, the Emerald Ash Borer affecting trees in the US midwest is spread in cut timber and firewood).
Methods to estimate and communicate risks are needed in pest risk assessment and in planning area-wide management programmes. Several projects have developed models and other representations of spatial-temporal risk and benefit/cost projections related to management of pests in agriculture and the natural environment. An important tool developed in these projects provides an area-based estimate (€/ha) of the environmental, social and health impacts of pesticides used in insect control programmes, which has been applied to locust control in W Africa with FAO.
Photo: External (indirect) environmental and health cost estimates produced for FAO for the 2003-2005 locust control campaign on a 25 sq km spatial grid in Senegal - total costs estimated at approximately €8 million.
Entomology has been a common entry point into wider environmental problems, with insects being central to risks to agricultural production, human and animal health, and damage to natural ecosystems through pest invasions. Insects are managed on a range of scales, from individuals exercising immediate local control to regional area-wide programmes and long-term international regulation, which requires an understanding of complex social, economic and policy interactions to apply sound principles of ecology and economics. Broad interests have been reflected in the supervision of very diverse MSc and PhD students on topics ranging from fuelwood management, strategic environmental assessment, and agricultural policy, to oil pipeline risks and environmental management systems for businesses. A common theme is the establishment of analytical frameworks that can incorporate quantitative spatial and temporal inputs along with management or policy objectives.
Photo: The IAEA Model Business Plan for Sterile Insect Production Facilities sets out principles for planning capital investment and operational costs in both large and small-scale sterile insect control programmes.
Current and recent projects include PRATIQUE, an EC Framework 7 project on enhanced pest risk analysis methods for Europe; ECOKNOWS, an EC Framework 7 project investigating risks and uncertainty associated with fish stock management; MosqGuide, a project with the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) to develop objective guidance for countries considering the potential implementation of genetically modified mosquitoes for control of malaria and dengue; and the continual development of improved risk assessment methods for invasive species management in Great Britain through work with the English, Scottish and Welsh governments, the Food and Environment Research Agency, and Natural England. The EC Framework 7 project MYFISH will investigate variants on Maximum Sustainable Yield as targets for fisheries management. Another fisheries management project, DEFINEIT, under the MariFish ERA-NET, specifies resource indicators that combine economic, social and biological measures to provide more relevant feedback for sustainable management that deals with uncertainty across each of these dimensions.
Photo: In the PRONE EC FP6 project uncertainties within fisheries management systems were modelled to demonstrate the value of a joint industry/regulator funded insurance programme; insurance has also been modelled in quarantine systems for DEFRA in Britain.
