My main academic interest is the relationship of people with their physical environment through time — as expressed in landscapes. Most of my research has been in the tropical lowlands of Mexico; I work with various types of information and undertake frequent ground exploration, but I much prefer to consider landscapes from the open door of a light plane.
Since 1998 I have been a visiting investigator at the Institute of Ecology in Xalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz in Mexico, while remaining a professor emeritus in the Geography Department at the University of British Columbia.
Together with Mexican colleagues I have recently concentrated on an attractive but also ecologically problematic volcanic mountain region known as The Tuxtlas (pictured above), on the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico. Link to publications
For some years I focused my research on pre-Hispanic wetland agriculture in the tropical lowlands of Mesoamerica. Link to publications.