David Cumming

Dr. David Cumming has been working in wildlife research and conservation in Zimbabwe and southern Africa since the 1960s. He graduated in Zoology and Entomology from Rhodes University in South Africa, started work in fisheries research but soon joined Zimbabwe's Department of National Parks & Wildlife Management in 1964. After 12 years at the Sengwa Wildlife Research Institute in Chirisa (where he did his doctoral research on warthog ecology), he became Chief Ecologist and headed the Branch of Terrestrial Ecology. In 1988, he retired early as Deputy Director of National Parks to set up the WWF Multispecies Animal Production Systems Project. This grew into the WWF Southern African Regional Program where he was Program Director until early 2001 when he became an independent consultant and a research associate in the Tropical Resource Ecology Programme (TREP) at the University of Zimbabwe.

Dr. Cumming’s main current research interests are in ecology and management of large mammalian herbivores, the influence of land use policy and practice on biodiversity and resilience in social-ecological systems, and the conservation and management of elephants. Invertebrates remain an abiding interest and he works with his wife Meg on termites and spiders.