Anna Varga
Anna Varga is a biologist and forest pedagogist who works in environmental humanities. Her research explores questions of environmental history, ethnobiology, floodplain management, silvopastoral systems, environmental education and (re)connection with nature.
She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pécs (2018). Currently, she Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Department of Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany, Czech Science Academy.
The MSCA project is title: Hidden in the forest: environmental history and environmental knowledge of charcoal burning in Central and Eastern Europe since the19th century. She is working group leader of Environmental History Working Group of EU-PoTaRCh COST Action, which focus on forest-by-products, as potash, tar, resin and charcoal burning.
Her previous research focuses on forest and pastures enclosures during the 19th century and its impact on the socio-ecological systems.
Anna has been involved in several international agroforestry research initiatives inrecent years and was a Carson Fellow (2019-2020) and Landhaus Fellow (2023) at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich. Her monograph was published in 2024, titled as Shepherding the wild: Wood pastures, forest grazing and herders in the region of Bakony and Balaton and beyond.
She has demonstrated the role of traditional knowledge in wood pasture management and validated their importance and practice of forest grazing in Central and Eastern Europe. Her work was one of the main influences on the forest grazing issue in Hungarian forest policy, enabling successful advocacy for changes in 2017 Forest Law. She has an active role in scientific organizations (SCB, ISE, ICCAs, IPBES), communication, and teaching.