Developing next-generation tools to predict the biodiversity impacts of feeding 10 billion people

I am Chief Scientist at BirdLife International where I lead a team who help to provide the scientific basis for the conservation programmes of the 115 Partners that form the BirdLife International Partnership. This includes assessing extinction risk for the world’s birds for the IUCN Red List, coordinating the standards and protocols for identifying and monitoring Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) globally, identifying key threats to birds and their habitats, determining the priority actions required (for species, sites, habitats and along flyways), understanding the how people depend upon the ecosystem services delivered by IBAs, developing biodiversity indicators based on bird data, and ensuring that sound science underpins BirdLife’s policy, advocacy and communications activities.

I joined BirdLife International in September 2018 after having undertaken my masters research project with BirdLife (which investigated the implications for conservation of BirdLife’s major taxonomic review of the world’s birds) and having previously volunteered with BirdLife and the RSPB. My research interests include threatened species, site-based conservation networks, global analyse and in applying ecological knowledge and large datasets to solve conservation problems. In my current role, I lead and undertake a range of research to support BirdLife’s science work. This includes work related to site-based conservation (including IBAs and KBAs), threatened species, remote sensing, global indicators, and other large-scale/big-data analyses.

I oversee RSPBs international conservation science team who work on a wide range of projects from site based tropical forest conservation through flyways conservation to seabirds. I focus on land use / land cover change, site conservation and species ranges.

I work in the International Conservation Science team at the RSPB, focusing on migratory birds and the East Atlantic Flyway. I also work on Key Biodiversity Areas, land cover change in sub-Saharan Africa, effectiveness of protected areas, and use of species distribution models to inform conservation priorities.  Most of my work involves GIS, remote-sensing and spatial analysis of large datasets.

I am a Professor of Conservation Science in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, where my research focuses on how to reconcile biodiversity conservation with meeting human food needs and other land-demanding activities; the costs and benefits of retaining intact ecosystems; and identifying what works in conservation. I collaborate closely with conservation practitioners and with colleagues in other disciplines, including economics and psychology. In my book Wild Hope he argues that cautious, evidence-based optimism is vital in tackling environmental challenges. I helped establish the Student Conference on Conservation Science, the Cambridge Conservation Forum, Earth Optimism, and most recently the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Credits.

I am a University Lecturer in Animal Ecology at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge; a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge; a Trustee of the Royal Entomological Society and a Board Member of Natural England. I lead an Agroecology research group, working on sustainable agriculture and insect conservation, with a particular focus on species that deliver production-related ecosystem services in highly productive farming systems. My work is in partnership with stakeholders, particularly farmers and policymakers, and she has been an author of ‘What Works in Conservation’, the flagship publication from the Conservation Evidence project, since its first edition.

My research interests lie in identifying how landscapes can be optimally managed for the benefit of both biodiversity and livelihoods, and quantifying the changing state of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

I have a particular research interest in studying the effect of agricultural change on biodiversity and identifying which policy and management interventions may reconcile the two. My PhD research involves assessing the farming system-wide biodiversity impacts of different agricultural strategies in India and whether better support for ecosystem service provisioning can consolidate ‘land sparing’ with ‘land sharing’ by matching the yields of conventional intensive agriculture and the biodiversity value of low-intensity agriculture.

As FFI’s Programme Manager for Agriculture I am responsible for FFI’s agriculture-related work globally, including providing technical support to our in-country teams, and through external collaborations. I have worked at FFI for two years supporting sustainable agriculture projects across Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Eurasia.

I am an ecological modelling scientist with a strong interest in how the biological world interacts with nutrient cycles. My work primarily involves developing mechanistic models to project biodiversity futures. In particular, I am working with colleagues at WCMC and Microsoft Research to develop the Madingley model, a novel model of ecosystems. In addition, I work to construct and employ models that can provide insights and answers to specific conservation questions.

Based at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Martin School, my research focuses on the role that food systems have in meeting the triple challenge of meeting sustainability targets on climate, biodiversity, and human wellbeing. I approach this research using model-based approaches to understand how changing human behaviour might continue to contribute to the climate and ecological crises, and how transitions to business-unusual pathways might prevent these damages before they arise.

I am a conservation scientist interested in preserving the incredible diversity of life on Earth while also looking after people. I largely do this by examining how different land-use strategies change the impact of food production on biodiversity, working at a range of scales and incorporating insights from multiple different disciplines: whilst my background is in natural sciences, understanding future land-use change will rely at least as much on social science disciplines, as on traditional conservation disciplines such as ecology.

In particular, my main areas of research at the moment are:

• Local and regional land-use strategies that provide everything that people need at the least cost to the natural world
• Global patterns of land-use change and the likely impacts on biodiversity
• Understanding and tackling the underlying drivers of biodiversity decline
• Maximising the impact of research

I am a conservation biologist with a background in research on the impacts of agriculture on biodiversity, and on how food production and biodiversity conservation might be reconciled. I am now based in southern Brazil, where my focus is on the conservation of one of the regions with most endemic and threatened birds in the world – the Atlantic Rainforests.