Professor Maano Ramutsindela is the UP-UCT Future Africa Research Chair : Sustainability Transformations effective from 1 April 2024. Prof Ramutsindela also serves as a Professor of Human Geography in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town (UCT). A Canon Collins Scholar, Ramutsindela holds a PhD in Geography from Royal Holloway College, University of London, and a Master’s degree in Geography from the University of the North (Turfloop). He is the immediate past Dean of the Faculty of Science at UCT. Nationally, he is a recipient of the NRF President’s Award (P rating) and the NRF Award for the Transformation of the Science Cohort, a Fellow of the Society of South African Geographers, an elected Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Internationally, he is a recipient of the International Visitor Award of the African Studies Association, held the Distinguished Hubert H. Humphrey Visiting Chair at Macalester College, Mandela Fellow of the W.E.B Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, Inaugural Guest Professor of the African Studies Programme of the Global Studies Institute at the University of Geneva, Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia, and Fellow of the Forrest Research Foundation in Australia.

Prof Ramutsindela’s current research is on socioecological relations and the political ecology of peace parks. He is author of Transfrontier Conservation in Africa: At the Confluence of Capital, Politics and Nature. His recent books include Africa and the Sustainable Development Goals (edited with David Mickler, Springer 2020); The Violence of Conservation in Africa: State, Militarization and Alternatives (edited with Frank Matose and Tafadzwa Mushonga, Edward Elgar 2022); and Routledge Handbook of Development and Environment (edited with Brent McCusker, Waquar Ahmed, and Patricia Solís, Routledge 2022).