Science-based targets for driving global wetland conservation applicable from local to global scales

I am the UK Manager of IUCN’s Global Species Programme. I recently moved to head IUCN’s team in Cambridge after spending the last decade living and working in Madagascar. My early career focussed on bird conservation and ecology and I spent many a happy day in the reed beds and upland rivers of Wales. In Madagascar, my work concentrated on species conservation and I established a national NGO that supports communities to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity. I was fortunate enough to run projects on fish, frogs, baobabs, bushmeat, chameleons and bats;  the conservation of Madagascar’s biodiversity remains close to my heart. With IUCN my work includes The Red List of Threatened Species and CITES.

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

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.

My research interests strongly revolve around the use of geospatial data in conservation-oriented modelling. In the past decade I collaborated with the Global Mammal Assessment laboratory in Sapienza, Rome, contributing towards the development of global habitat suitability models for mammals and amphibians, and studying the impacts of socioeconomic development scenarios on biodiversity. My current personal scientific interest is directed towards figuring out how to plan today for tomorrow’s scenarios, and how to integrate this approach in currently existing global strategies.

I am an aquatic ecologist undertaking research in both freshwater and marine environments. Projects are centred on conservation of aquatic organisms and environments at landscape and global scales.

I recently completed an analysis of mangrove restoration potential which locates and maps, on a global scale, the places where mangroves can be restored, and calculates the potential benefits from such restoration. The work provides a critical tool for encouraging restoration and enabling robust, data-driven policy changes and investments. I develop tools and datasets that are used by organisation implement on the ground conservation.

My current work is focused on mapping the distribution of global tidal marshes as a baseline to examine habitat loss, quantify ecosystem service value and determine restoration potential.

My work focuses mainly on mapping and modelling potential impacts of land use and climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services, in particular in freshwater environments. I also hold a position at King’s College London where I have been part of a number of studies into impacts of large dams as a co-developer of one of the world’s largest geo-referenced database of dams now available through: www.globaldamwatch.org

I am a marine biologist who started my career tagging toothed whales to study changes in spatial behaviour and social cohesion resulting from human disturbance. As a Senior Scientist at IUCN, my work focuses on developing science-based targets for biodiversity to inform corporate and policy decision-making, data strategy and policy, and deploying global datasets to analyse the interactions between biodiversity and key human interfaces such as violent conflict, agriculture, synthetic biology and palm oil. I hold degrees from MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Princeton University.

I am head of the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) Secretariat, housed at BirdLife International in Cambridge. The KBA Secretariat supports the implementation of the KBA Programme of the 13 KBA Partners which is focused on identifying, mapping, monitoring and conserving sites of importance for the global persistence of biodiversity. In this role I work with governments, scientists and conservation practitioners to train and support KBA national Coordination Groups to identify their KBAs. I have worked extensively in East and Central Africa where I supported the establishment of new protected areas through biological and socioeconomic surveys and engagement of members of local communities. I also supported protected area authorities to better manage and conserve their protected areas in this region.

I am a conservation ecologist and my research focusses on developing the science to inform and support international species conservation policy. I led the international team of researchers and conservationists to develop the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration metric and publish results of the application of STAR to terrestrial vertebrates globally.