Why a blog about my work?

Product development for Community Based
Ecotourism Pu Luong Nature Reserve
Northern Vietnam

How do you reply when people ask "what do you do for a living?".  Can you answer with a job title or profession, or does it take a long description?

To simplify, I tend to say either "Conservation, Protected Areas Management, Environmental Education, Tourism or Sustainable Livelihoods Consultant", depending upon project, but to be accurate, perhaps the following would be more appropriate:

"I am a consultant who specialises in tourism resource planning; sustainable rural livelihoods; ecotourism; sustainable tourism; community based tourism; pro-poor tourism; wildlife tourism; visitor access management; environmental education training and delivery; curriculum development; capacity building, tour guide training, health & safety and risk assessment analysis and training; development of interpretation plans and materials, visitor's centre design and management; composing grant applications; value chain analysis; project design, and from time to time, national and international staff recruitment...

...I work with rural communities; protected area management authorities; rangers; forest and marine guards; commune, district, provincial and national government departments and ministries; local and international NGOs; school, college and university groups; the tourism private sector as well as the occasional tourist!..

...I work in national parks, nature reserves, marine protected areas, world heritage sites, countryside recreation areas, rural communities, local and international schools, colleges and universities...

...and then there's the cross cutting themes like climate change, gender issues, HIV/AIDS and so on".

But that is quite a mouthful... I have just decided to call myself a "Heritage Management Consultant", as finally "Heritage" is becoming a word that is being increasingly used and understood in tourism/development media.  I hope the posts on this blog will provide some detail of my work and achievements over the years.  I've written chronologically, with my most current work first... I've tried not to present all my work as huge successes, nor as pessimistic tales of doom, but some sort of balance in between.  Click on some of the links on the left column, under "about me" for more projects and work.... Click on pictures in the blog, or the link at the end of each post for more photos.