Simon Phillips
He/Him
About
Simon completed his MSc in Ethnobotany at Kent in 2021. His dissertation explored life histories of elder gardeners in the Dane Valley allotment gardens in Margate, Kent.
He will be in the Gobi, Mongolia, summer 2024, documenting plant knowledge of nomadic people in a region upset by mining. The expedition will also chart under-studied silk routes, identifying potential UNESCO world heritage sites, and utilising recently released Japanese spy maps from 1910 to chart a route across the desert. The expedition is funded by an Endowment for the Humanities Grant, USA,
Simon is part of the collective ‘conservation fieldwork international’ and has undertaken expedition research for Oman Botanic Gardens, in the Dhofar mountains of Oman.
Publications:
Preserving the Gobi: Identifying potential UNESCO world heritage in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert C. McCarthy et al. Journal of Asia Pacific Biodiversity, 2022.
Research interests
Ethnobotany, MIddle East (Oman), Central Asia (Mongolia).