Emeritus Professor of Pacific Islands Biogeography

Professor Randy Thaman is The University of the South Pacific’s longest serving academic staff member. He joined the University in February 1974. He has conducted research in all the USP member countries, most recently on community-based biodiversity in Fiji, Tonga, Niue Tuvalu and Kiribati, and on the floras of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and a number of islands in Fiji. Over the years countless USP students have worked with him on these projects. Many of these students now hold important positions with government and non-government agencies in the areas of environmental management and sustainable development throughout the region.

Professor Thaman has published widely on a range of topics of importance to the Pacific Islands. His main areas of research include environmentally sustainable development, atoll and small-island ecosystems, biodiversity, agroforestry, Pacific Island food systems, ethnobiology and traditional environmental knowledge, Pacific Island floras, community-based biodiversity conservation, and ecotourism and urban gardening