A Quantitative Global Review of Trade in Wild Birds

My current role as the Research Assistant for the CCI Collaborative Fund project on quantifying global bird trade primarily involves undertaking research and analysis tasks. I also provide support to any administrative requirements related to the project. I first joined BirdLife in 2019, qualifying as an IUCN Red List Assessor, working on assessments for the EU component of the European Red List of Birds. Subsequently, I was able to conduct Global Red List assessments for all birds and regions. I have also previously conducted Red List assessments for other species. My interests therefore lie with conservation assessments and species and/or ecosystem monitoring. I am additionally interested in other manners of conservation biology such species’ habitat utilisation (particularly in coastal wetlands), sustainable, inclusive conservation methods and island biogeography and diversity.

Ciara is a Programme Officer in UNEP-WCMC’s Species Team, where she is responsible for delivering projects that help the implementation of some of the world’s largest international agreements, including CITES and CMS. She has a degree in Zoology from the University of Edinburgh, a Masters in Biodiversity and Conservation from Trinity College Dublin, and a PhD from the University of Manchester, where she studied large-scale patterns of bushmeat hunting in South America as well as how to better build local knowledge and attitudes into conservation plans. For this CCI project, Ciara will provide input into trade analyses that are underpinned by CITES trade data, as well as expertise on trade issues related to CITES species.

Since 2013, I have been coordinator of the BirdLife International Preventing Extinctions Programme, BirdLife’s species conservation programme. Reducing the trade threat to birds is one of our highest priorities world-wide; we are taking action for birds known to be threatened by trade, for example parrots, songbirds, Helmeted Hornbill and vultures, while this project will help us (and others) to fill the many information gaps and further prioritise efforts. From 1988 to 2013, I worked on a range of conservation and research programmes in the tropics, implementing, developing and/or managing national and regional activities at important sites for conservation, and then led the development and start-up of BirdLife’s Forests Programme. Species and site conservation have always been at the heart of my work, with a strong element of capacity development and local and national empowerment throughout.

As a wildlife trade researcher, Serene manages and implements projects on wildlife trade across Southeast Asia, focusing on the illegal and unsustainable trade in birds and reptiles. In her capacity, she manages, supervises and coordinates a range of consultants, third-party contractors as well as partners. She has authored a range of technical reports and scientific papers uncovering the scale and depth of the illegal and unsustainable trade in these topics; her work on the caged bird trade across Southeast Asia is probably the most prominent part of her portfolio. Serene is a National Geographic Explorer, a Co-coordinator of the IUCN/SSC Asian Songbird Trade Specialist Group, holds an MPhil in Conservation Leadership from the University of Cambridge and a BSc (Hons) Biology from the University of Bristol, and has been working for TRAFFIC since 2013

I coordinate the science and technical input to BirdLife International’s global Flyways Programme. I work on a variety of multi-partner projects in different flyways aiming to address key threats to migratory birds, on development of policy relevant tools and on identification and protection of networks of key sites for migratory species. I work with a number of policy mechanisms relevant to migratory birds, including CMS, AEWA, AEMLAP and as a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the CMS Raptors MOU.

I work on a number of different projects seeking to understand patterns of legal and illegal wildlife trade and drivers. Most of my work relates to CITES and I represent TRAFFIC at CITES Committee meetings and the CoP. I am particularly interested in understanding the facilitating environment – for examples corruption, lack of capacity, cultural acceptance etc. that allows illegal or unsustainable trade to persist, as without understanding this, solutions will never be fully successful.

As global biodiversity policy coordinator at BirdLife, I work through the BirdLife Partnership to deliver our ambitions across the MEA policy agendas. In particular, this involves working with our Conservation and Science teams to provide policy advice on CITES, and shaping, with our Partnership, BirdLife’s positioning at the Convention on Biological Diversity, on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and its implementation.

I am broadly interested in understanding the effects of anthropogenic changes on biodiversity and improving evidence-based solutions for counteracting negative effects at population or landscape scale. My main areas of work have been on:

(1) road impacts (mortality, fragmentation,  isolation, pollution) on amphibian and small and medium-sized mammalian populations. This includes movement patterns and using road-based surveys for large-scale monitoring.

(2) harnessing the power of citizen science in long-term datasets for amphibians and reptiles including for emerging diseases.

(3) how landscape management shapes the outcome of plant-animal interactions such as grazing and species distribution in relation to lagomorphs.

My current work at Conservation Evidence is the production of the updated Bird Conservation book as well as the new What Works In Conservation volume.

I am currently heavily involved in exploring a range of ways of integrating conservation science and policy especially through the development of evidence-based conservation. I have written The Conservation Handbook and From Individual Behaviour to Population Biology and have edited Managing Habitats for Conservation, Ecological Census Techniques, Behaviour and Conservation, Conservation Science and Action and Bird Ecology and Conservation: a Handbook of Techniques and most recently Transforming Conservation: a practical guide to evidence and decision making.

Read an interview with Bill published in ‘This Cambridge Life’ by the University of Cambridge.

I have expertise in analysing IUCN species data, and manage the IUCN Red List database.

Dao Nguyen was born and grew up in Vietnam’s first national park – Cuc Phuong. She studied languages and culture and then conservation biology. She started her conservation career with WWF Vietnam focussing on protected areas and species conservation, then moved to the Western Indian Ocean to work with Nature Seychelles on small island biodiversity. She then worked for WWF International on international biodiversity policy. Since 2017, she has been working for IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) as the IUCN Species Survival Commission Coordinator, with a special focus on international environmental policy for species conservation.

Kelly is the Head of UNEP-WCMC’s Species Programme and has over fifteen years’ experience working at the science-policy interface of international conservation. Kelly manages a dedicated team of scientists and policy experts focussed on supporting the implementation of species-related international agreements, including CITES and CMS. She has a degree in Applied Mathematics from Pomona College in California and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford. For this CCI project, Kelly will help guide the bird trade analysis work, bringing expertise in CITES implementation, wildlife trade data analysis, and biodiversity data management.

I have five years academic experience in Zoology and conservation with a specific interest in wildlife trade which led me to complete a second master’s in Conservation and International Wildlife Trade at DICE. I have been working within TRAFFIC’s Research and Analysis Team for the last three years, working mainly on the seizure database WiTIS (Wildlife Trade Information System), collecting and analysing illegal wildlife trade data.

I currently work as the Programme Officer for sustainable use and trade for the Global Species Programme at IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). As the IUCN focal point for CITES, I primarily work on matters related to the international wildlife trade, and develop collaborative initiatives to support sustainable trade with our partners, including TRAFFIC and the IUCN Species Survival Commission. I previously worked on CITES and CMS with the Species Programme at UNEP-WCMC, and my interests lie with marine conservation and international environmental policy.

Professor James Wood is a veterinary epidemiologist who leads the Disease Dynamics Unit in Cambridge University and conducts multidisciplinary research on infectious diseases. He is also Dean of Cambridge University Veterinary School. His research interests are focussed on One Health approaches to infectious disease emergence and its control and are based in UK, India, Ghana and Ethiopia. He is involved in collaborative studies of emergence of RNA viruses from fruit bats and  control of bovine tuberculosis. He is one of the leaders of the Cambridge-Africa collaborative, capacity-building programme.