Michael Redclift is a member of the Department of Geography, at King’s College, London. Professor Redclift’s research interests include sustainable development, global environmental change, environmental security and the modern food system undertaking research in Europe, Latin America and the United Kingdom. He was the first Director of the Global Environmental Change programme of the ESRC between 1990 and 1995, managing a £20 million international programme of research, the largest programme of its type at the time. Between 1973 and 1997 he was at [Imperial College at] Wye, ultimately as Professor of Environmental Sociology. He has coordinated research grants for the European Commission (FM IV and V), and for the TERM programme of the European Science Foundation. He has also held grants from the ESRC/AHRC (2003-2005) and in 2007 commenced a three year study (with Mark Pelling) of coastal urbanisation and adaptation to environmental risks in the Mexican Caribbean. In 2006 he was the first recipient of the ‘Frederick Buttel Award’, from the International Sociological Association, for, “… an outstanding contribution to international scholarship in environmental sociology”. His research on global production and consumption chains was published in 2004 by Taylor and Francis in New York as Chewing Gum: the fortunes of taste. He recently completed (2006) a major comparative study of frontier societies and their relations with the natural environment for MIT Press: Frontiers: histories of civil societies and nature.