Footprint of Colonialism: Attributing Biodiversity Loss and GHG Emissions from Colonial Land Change Processes, by Linu Danielkutty.

This PhD project, started in 2024, will focus on the evolution of modern European colonialism throughout Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial rule in their former colonies with an emphasis on the plantation and trade societies that emerged. This history can be viewed as a common thread linking together many post-colonial countries and therefore provides a foundation for understanding and creating a global framework for the reconstruction of land change. From this understanding the overall aim would be to quantify a ‘colonial environmental footprint’ in post-colonial countries.

AIM

The aim of the research questions ultimately answer if colonialism left a significant environmental footprint in post-colonial countries based on the hypothesis that colonialism introduced drastic and mismanaged land changes that have lasting economic and ecological effects which can be quantified.

RQ1: How did colonial plantation economies affect carbon emissions and forest cover loss in Sri Lanka?

RQ 2: Can the mapping of present land degradation patterns in Africa be linked to past colonial land change patterns?

RQ 3: What spatial allocation rules can be modelled to understand colonial land change on a global level?