Harold Brookfield

Brookfield and Blaikie co-authored Land Degradation and Society, published in 1987, which examined the environmental and social causes of land degradation in developing regions. The book argued that land degradation cannot be understood without attention to political economy, local livelihoods, and the distribution of power.

Brookfield's research concentrated on the Pacific region, particularly Papua New Guinea, as well as other tropical and developing areas. He studied rural development, agrarian change, and human-environment relationships in these contexts over a long career.

Brookfield spent much of his career at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he was associated with the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. His position there placed him at a major international center for Pacific and development geography.

Brookfield advocated combining ecological analysis with attention to social, economic, and political structures, arguing against purely environmental or purely social explanations of land-use change. He emphasized that local farmers' knowledge and decision-making must be understood within broader political and economic constraints.