Rachel Wynberg is an academic, policy analyst and scholar activist with a special interest in bio-politics and the biodiversity-based economy, alternative agricultural futures and agroecology. She is a Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and hold DSI/NRF South African Research Chair (SARChI): Environmental and Social Dimensions of the Bio-economy at the University of Cape Town (UCT). With a background in the natural and social sciences, she has a strong interest in interdisciplinarity and policy engagement across the humanities, arts and sciences.
Over the past twenty years, Wynberg has advised governments, civil society organisations and international agencies, and continues to be actively involved with policy debates and civil society movements in southern Africa, serving as a founding member on the boards of Biowatch South Africa and Environmental Monitoring Group. She is currently an elected member of the Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf), a member of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP) Expert Group and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Sustainable Use assessment. Over the past ten years she has reviewed articles for more than 40 journals across a range of disciplines, and currently serves on the editorial board of Society and Natural Resources and Food Chain. She is also a Board member of the Union for Ethical Biotrade (Netherlands) and represents UCT on the Bioprospecting Forum of the South African government. As part of her Research Chair, she supervises a team of 10-15 Masters and PhD students and postdoctoral fellows working on a range of issues across the bio-economy sphere, to date graduating more than thirty postgraduate students. Her work is embedded in engaged scholarship, seeking to build a team of socially conscious researchers that engages critically, inclusively and effectively with the inter-connected themes incorporated under her Chair. She aims to carry through principles of engaged scholarship to the production of socially robust and scientifically rigorous research that matters, that addresses social and environmental justice, and that values the architectures of different knowledge systems.
She is a founding member of a long-term collaboration on Seed and Knowledge (SKI) - a synergistic relationship between several NGOs and UCT, aiming to revive and enhance traditional seed and knowledge systems and to deepen understanding about their functioning, within the context of supportive agricultural, cultural and ecological practices. Wynberg is also co-Director of Voices for BioJustice, a collaborative initiative developing innovative approaches to build capacity and facilitate the direct, substantive and authentic contributions of local groups to policy design and implementation, with the goal is to make the use of biodiversity more equitable and sustainable, and policies more effective and just. Wynberg is rated by National Research Foundation (NRF) as an internationally recognised researcher (B2). Her publications include over 220 scientific papers, technical reports and popular articles, and five co-edited books and monographs. Her research outputs range from conceptual and theoretical frameworks, to review articles and those consolidating global case studies, contributions based on empirical data, and practical and grounded research outputs that are accessible to varied actors in the bio-economy, including policy-makers.
