McGill Faculty Affiliate: Jon Unruh

Jon Unruh is an Associate Professor of Geography at McGill University. His research, applied, and policy work over the past 20 years has dealt with post-conflict land and property rights in the developing world, and the intersection of land tenure and environmental change. His past endeavors have focused on conflict resolution, land policy and law, restitution, legal pluralism, approaches to reconciling customary and formal tenure systems, and agriculture in postwar and peace-building scenarios. His experience includes work in Sudan, Liberia, Somalia, Mozambique, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Uganda, Madagascar, and Colombia.

• With W. McConnell and J. Rodman J, “Environmental change and adaptation in degraded agro-ecosystems: the case of highland Madagascar,” Area.
• “Tree-based carbon storage in developing countries: neglect of the social sciences,” Society and Natural Resources.

• 2009 Bruch C, Jensen D, Nakayama M, Unruh J, Gruby R, and Wolfarth R, “Post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resources,” Yearbook of International Environmental Law 19: 58-96.
• 2009 “Catalyzing the socio-legal space for armed conflict: land and legal pluralism in pre-war Liberia,” Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 58: 1-32.
• 2009 Brottem L, Unruh J, “Territorial tensions: rainforest conservation, post-conflict recovery and land tenure,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99: 995-1002.
• 2009 Unruh J, Bailey J, “Management of spatially extensive natural resources in postwar contexts: working with the peace process,” GeoJournal 74: 159-173.
• 2009 “Land rights in postwar Liberia: the volatile part of the peace process,” Land Use Policy 26: 425-433.
• 2008 “Land policy reform, customary rule of law and the peace process in Sierra Leone,” African Journal of Legal Studies 2: 94-117.
• 2008 “Carbon sequestration in Africa: the land tenure problem,” Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 18: 700-707.
• 2008 Frank EJ, Unruh JD, “Demarcating forest, containing disease: land and HIV/AIDS in Southern Zambia,” Population and Environment 29: 108-132.
• 2008 “Toward sustainable livelihoods after war: reconstituting rural land tenure systems,” Natural Resources Forum 32: 103-115.
• 2007 “Urbanization in the developing world and the acutely tenure insecure,” City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action. 11: 115-120.
• 2007 Guyer J, Lambin E, Cliggett L, Walker P, Amanor K, Bassett T, Colson E, Hay R, Homewood K, Linares O, Pabi O, Peters P, Scudder T, Turner M, Unruh J, “Temporal heterogeneity in the study of African land use: interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropology, human geography and remote sensing,” Human Ecology 35: 3-17
• 2007 Cligget L, Coleson E, Hay R, Scudder T, Unruh J, “Chronic uncertainty and momentary opportunity: a half century of adaptation among Zambia’s Gwembe Tonga,” Human Ecology 35: 19-31.
• 2007 “Postwar resource tenure issues in the settlement of Sudan 's dislocated population,” Journal of Northeast African Studies 9:1-10.
• 2006 “ Land tenure and the ‘evidence landscape' in developing countries,” Annals of theB Association of American Geographers 96: 754-772.
• 2006 Vogt N, Bahati J, Unruh J , Green G, Banana A, Gombya-Ssembajjwe W, Sweeny S, “Integrating remote sensing data and rapid appraisals for land-cover change analyses in Uganda,” Land Degradation and Development 17: 31-43.
• 2005 “Changing conflict resolution institutions in the Ethiopian pastoral commons: the role of armed confrontation in rule-making,” GeoJournal 64:225-237.
• 2005 “ Property restitution laws in a post-war context: the case of Mozambique,” African Journal of Legal Studies 3:147-165.
• 2005 Unruh JD, Cligget L, Hay R, “Migrant land rights reception and 'clearing to claim' in Sub-Saharan Africa: A deforestation example from southern Zambia,” Natural Resources Forum 29: 190-198.
• 2004 Unruh JD, Krol MS, Kliot N (eds.), Environmental Change and its Implications for Population Migration (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer). Published Articles, Chapters and Reviews
• 2004 Mulley BG, Unruh JD, “The role of off-farm employment in tropical forest conservation: labor, migration, and smallholder attitudes toward land in western Uganda,” Journal of Environmental Management 71: 193-205.
• 2003 Unruh JD, Heynen NC , Hossler P, “The political ecology of recovery from armed conflict: the case of landmines in Mozambique,” Political Geography 22: 841-861.
• 2003 “Land tenure and legal pluralism in the peace process,” Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research 28: 352-376.
• 2002 “Poverty and property rights in the developing world: not as simple as we would like,” Land Use Policy 19: 275-276.
• 2002 “ Local land tenure in the peace process,” Peace Review 14: 337-342.
• 2001 “Postwar land dispute resolution: land tenure and the peace process in Mozambique,” International Journal of World Peace 18: 3-30.
• 2000 Hutchinson CF, Unruh JD , Bahre CJ, “Land use vs. climate change as causes of vegetation change: a study in SE Arizona,” Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 10: 47-55.
• 1998 “Land tenure and identity change in postwar Mozambique,” GeoJournal 46: 89-99. Invited.
• 1997 “The role of land conflict and land conflict resolution in a peace process: Mozambique’s return to agriculture,” Refuge 16: 28-33.
• 1995 Unruh JD, Lefebvre PA, “A spatial database approach for estimating areas suitable for agroforestry in Africa,” Agroforestry Systems 32: 81-96.
• 1995 “ The relationship between indigenous pastoralist resource tenure and state tenure in Somalia,” GeoJournal 36: 19-26.
• 1995 “Post-conflict recovery of African agriculture: The role of ‘critical resource’ tenure,” Ambio 24: 343-350.
• 1995 “Agroforestry, reforestry and the carbon problem: the role of land and tree tenure,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 20: 215-228.
• 1994 “The role of land use pattern and process in the diffusion of valuable tree species,” Journal of Biogeography 21: 283-295.
• 1993 “ Restocking refugee pastoralists in the Horn of Africa,” Disasters 17: 305-320.
• 1993 “An acacia -based design for sustainable livestock carrying capacity on irrigated farmlands in semi-arid East Africa,” Ecological Engineering 2: 131-148.
• 1993 “Refugee resettlement on the Horn of Africa: the integration of host and refugee land use Patterns,” Land Use Policy 10: 49-66.
• 1993 Unruh JD, Houghton RA, Lefebvre PA, “Carbon storage in agroforestry: an estimate for sub-Saharan Africa,” Climate Research (Special Issue: Management of the Terrestrial Biosphere to Sequester Atmospheric CO2) 3: 39-52.
• 1993 Houghton RA, Unruh JD , Lefebvre PA, “Current land use in the tropics and its potential for sequestering carbon,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 7: 305-320.
• 1991 “Nomadic pastoralism and irrigated agriculture in Somalia : utilization of existing land use patterns in designs for multiple access of ‘high potential’ areas of semi-arid Africa,” GeoJournal 25: 91-108.
• 1991 “ Canopy structure in natural and agroforest successions in Amazonia,” Tropical Ecology 32: 168-181.
• 1990 “ Integration of transhumant pastoralism and irrigated agriculture in semi-arid East Africa,” Human Ecology 18: 223-246.
• 1990 “ Iterative increase of economic tree species in managed swidden-fallows of the Amazon,” Agroforestry Systems 11: 175-197.
• 1988 “ Ecological aspects of site recovery under swidden-fallow management in the Peruvian Amazon,” Agroforestry Systems 7: 161-184.
• 1985 Padoch C, Chota J, De Jong W, Unruh J, “Amazonian agroforestry: a market-oriented system in Peru,” Agroforestry Systems 3: 47-58.

*Referred

• 2009 * “Humanitarian approaches to conflict and post-conflict legal pluralism in land tenure,” in: Pantuliano S (ed.), Uncharted territory Land, conflict and humanitarian action (Warwickshire, UK: Practical Action Publishers).
• 2008 * “The property rights perscription: urban migrants versus rural customary land tenure in the developing world,” in Smith B, Mark D, Erlich I (eds.), The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality (Chicago: Open Court Press).
• 2005 *Unruh JD, Nagendra H, Green GM, McConnell WJ, and Vogt N., “Cross-Continental Comparisons: Africa and Asia,” in Moran EF, and Ostrom E. (eds.), Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Human-Environment Interactions in Forest Ecosystems (Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press).
• 2004 * “Migration induced legal pluralism in land tenure: implications for environmental Change,” in Unruh JD, Krol MS, Kliot N (eds.), Environmental Change and its Implications for Population Migration (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer).
• 2004 * “Rural property rights in a peace process: lessons from Mozambique,” in Warf B, Janelle D, Hanson K (eds.), WorldMinds: 100 Geographical Perspectives On 100 Problems (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer).
• 2002 * “Land dispute resolution in Mozambique: evidence and institutions of agroforestry technology adoption,” in Meinzen-Dick R, and Mcculloch A., Place F, Swallow B. (eds.), Innovation in Natural Resource Management: The Role of Property Rights and Collective Action in Developing Countries (London: Johns Hopkins University Press).
• 1996 * “Resource Sharing: small holders and pastoralists in Shalambood, Lower Shabelle Region,” in Besteman C, Cassanelli L (eds.), The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The War Behind the War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).
• 1995 “Pastoralist resource use and access in Somalia: a changing context of development, environmental stress, and conflict,” in Sorenson J (ed.), Disaster and Development on the Horn of Africa (London: Macmillan).
• 1994 Roth M, Unruh J, Barrows D, “Land registration, tenure security, credit use and investment in the Shabelle region of Somalia,” in Bruce JW, Migot-Adholla SE (eds.), Searching for Tenure Security in Africa (Dubuque, Iowa: The World Bank and Kendall\Hunt Publishing).
• 1987 *Unruh JD, and Alcorn JB, “Relative dominance of the useful component in young managed fallows at Brillo Nuevo,” in Denevan WM, and Padoch C (eds.), Swidden-Fallow Agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon. Advances in Economic Botany (New York: New York Botanical Garden): 47-52.
• 1987 *Unruh JD, and Paitan SF, “Relative abundance of the useful component in old Managed Fallows at Brillo Nuevo,” in Denevan WM, and Padoch C (eds.), Swidden-Fallow Agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon. Advances in Economic Botany (New York: New York Botanical Garden): 67-73.
• 1987 *Padoch C, Chota J, De Jong W, Unruh J, “Market-oriented agroforestry at Tamishiyacu,” in Denevan WM, and Padoch C (eds.), Swidden-Fallow Agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon. Advances in Economic Botany (New York: New York Botanical Garden): 90-96.