Dr Keith G. Tidball

Senior Fellow

Dr Keith G. Tidball is an environmental anthropologist and naturalist. He focuses on better understanding how to amplify recruitment of citizen conservationists and how to facilitate the development of a 21st century land ethic. One important avenue to achieving this is ancient and timeless – hunting and fishing. Dr Tidball studies societal acceptance of hunting and angling and cares deeply about hunter and angler recruitment, retention, and reactivation. In his work, “hunting” spans all forms of the pursuit of wildlife and game.

Dr Tidball's work features efforts to locate and explore portals and pathways into conservation behaviors. This work can be understood as a form of Human Dimensions efforts to understand attitudes, beliefs, motivations and behaviours among humans within social-ecological systems. Grounded in cultural anthropology, disturbance ecology and environmental psychology, he approaches this challenge via integrated research and extension work exploring (1) the human dimensions of natural resources management,  and (2) ecological dimensions of security, understood from across the national security to human security  spectrum, and through the lenses of social-ecological system resilience and conservation social sciences. 

Experiences in the military and in the field of international disaster response and relief inform his unique brand of applied scholarship, including stints throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas. He also studies how outdoor recreation contributes to and enhances resilience and recovery for military veterans and others who have experienced trauma. Dr Tidball has been working in Africa since 1999, predominantly Southern African nations often referred to as “range states” for particular wild species.