Anna Varga

Membership:  2020

Member Bio

Dr. Anna Varga comes to the RCC from the MTA Centre for Ecological Research, in Hungary. She is a biologist-ethnobiologist with interests in the history and recent development of the silvopastoral systems in Central-East Europe. She holds a PhD from the University of Pécs (2018). In 2011, she participated in the Global Environmental Summer Academy, which was hosted by the Rachel Carson Center. This course, along with several international ethnobiology events, influenced her work deeply. Anna has been involved in multiple international agroforestry research initiatives over the last few years. Her work was one of the main influences on the forest grazing issue in Hungarian forest policy, enabling successful advocacy for changes in the most recent Forest Law (2017). She is delighted that, after 60 years, forest grazing is permitted again in some places in Hungary. Anna is an active teacher and environmental educator and has lived relationships with rural communities. Her research explores questions of ethnobiology, landscape history, environmental education, childhood, and processes of separation and (re)connection with nature.

Projects

Shepherding the Wild: Unmaking and Remaking Hungarian Wood Pastures

Lunchtime Colloquium Video - "Shepherding the Wild: Unmaking and Remaking Hungarian Wood Pastures"

Publications

  • with K. Öllerer, K. Kirby, L. Demeter, M. Biró, J. Bölöni, and Z. Molnár. "Beyond the obvious impact of domestic livestock grazing on temperate forest vegetation – A global review." Biological Conservation 237, (2019): 209–219.
  • "'Innovation from the Past.' Silvopastoral Systems in Hungary in the Light of Hungarian Ethnographic Literature." Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 62, no. 1 (2017): 135–162.
  • with Zs. Molnár, M. Biró, L. Demeter, K. Gellény, E. Miókovics, Á. Molnár, K. Molnár, N. Ujházy, V. Ulicsni, and D. Babai. "Changing year-round habitat use of extensively grazing cattle, sheep and pigs in East-Central Europe between 1940 and 2014: Consequences for conservation and policy." Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 234, (2016): 142–153.
  • with T. Hartel and T. Plieninger. "Wood-pastures in Europe." InEurope's Changing Woods and Forests: From Wildwood to Managed Landscapes, edited by Keith Kirby and Charles Watkins, 61–76. Wallingford: CAB International, 2015.
  • with P. Ódor, Zs. Molnár, and J. Bölöni. "The history and natural regeneration of a secondary oak-beech woodland on a former wood-pasture in Hungary." Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae 84, no. 2 (2015): 215–225.
  • with Zs. Molnár. "The Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Managing Wood-pastures." In European Wood-pastures in Transition, edited by Tibor Hartel and Tobias Plieninger, 187-202. Oxon: Routledge, 2014.

    • Address

    Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society
    LMU Munich
    Leopoldstr. 11a
    D-80802 Munich

    Phone: +49 (0) 89/ 2180- 72352
    Fax: +49 (0) 89/ 2180- 72353

    Related Sites

    Rachel Carson Center
    LMU Munich

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