Past ACCFs

International Consultant, Foodscope, Canada

Robert Prescott-Allen has been a consultant on nature, culture, wellbeing, and sustainability for 25 years. He has strong practical experience in developing and using indicators. He led the development of Wellbeing Assessment (a method of assessing the conditions and interactions of people and the environment); devised the Barometer of Sustainability (a graphic method of combining indicators and displaying the results); conducted a global assessment of human and environmental conditions; led, conducted, or advised on national or subnational assessments of sustainability in Canada, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, India, and Pakistan; and has produced and delivered training and orientation courses on assessing wellbeing and sustainability for communities, corporations, and governments in the above six countries plus Mexico and Bangladesh. He is the author of The Wellbeing of Nations (2001), and coauthor of Blueprint for Survival (1972), World Conservation Strategy (1980), and Caring for the Earth: a Strategy for Sustainable Living (1991).

With his wife, Christine, Robert has pioneered the documentation and analysis of the contributions of biodiversity to human wellbeing, producing the first major account of the role of wild genetic resources in agriculture and food production (Genes from the Wild, 1983), the first systematic evaluation of the contributions of wild plants and animals to an industrialized economy (The First Resource: Wild Species in the North American Economy, 1986), the first proper enumeration of the most important plant species for human nutrition (How many plants feed the world?, 1990), and the first global assessment of the state of the environment and human wellbeing that gives equal weight to both (The Wellbeing of Nations, 2001). They have also worked with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference on the formulation of an Inuit Conservation Strategy; and have undertaken studies of the genetic resources of crop plants for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).

Robert is currently researching and developing indicators of cultural wealth and its links to biological diversity.

Robert Prescott-Allen is British and Canadian. The Prescott-Allens live on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. They established PADATA, their consultancy on nature and culture, in 1981; and Foodscope, focussing on food systems, in 2004.