Dr Daniel Cooper grew up in Northern California and graduated with honours from Hamilton College in 2001. He continued his studies at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies where he received an MA in 2006 in international relations, economics, Latin America and emerging markets.

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Soon after graduation, Daniel began a job at the World Bank in their Caribbean Country Management Unit where he worked on climate change adaptation and mitigation projects and ultimately became the Country Officer for Guyana.

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He began the D.Phil programme in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford in 2010, where his research helped him to deepen his understanding of indigenous communities and how they interact with the land.

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Daniel’s work has examined the historical spirituality of the circum- Roraima landscape in the Guiana Highlands of South America – one of the most spectacular areas found on Earth and the inspiration behind Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous adventure novel ‘The Lost World’.

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He spent two years collecting video, audio and written data by working directly with indigenous communities around Mount Roraima. Daniel plans to release a series of books and films about his work.

 

Many indigenous peoples embody an alternative model of sustainable
life that values landscapes differently than capitalist models of exploitation and conservation. Daniel’s research aims to fill the knowledge-gap between the ecocentric and anthropocentric dimensions of natural resource management.