Dr Camille Parmesan is a climate change researcher who knows what it feels like to have one’s habitat wither.
Preventing extinction
There’s little as rare as a rere’s egg on Madagascar. So when Chris Ransom, the Director of Field Programmes at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, announces that they’ve had a few eggs hatch it’s huge news. “We got quite excited,” he says. “We haven’t managed to breed them at our Ampijoroa breeding facility since 2017, but this year we managed. That was a real achievement”.
Every day the news includes stories about the massive loss of biodiversity occurring globally and of the destruction related to climate change. Most people view these as separate problems, but they are not.
COP27 will go down in history as the African IMPLEMENTATION COP. Duncan MacFadyen, head of Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation, draws out some climate change lessons after attending COP27.
The world looks to COP27 to negotiate our future against a ticking clock. With the event taking place on African soil this year, this is a valuable opportunity to gain climate wins for the continent. The
Conservation in Africa is at a crossroads. A false step risks mass extinctions and economic ruin. It’s time for hard work, clear thinking and tough choices, write Fred Kockott and Rio Button.
Reserve managers often agonise over whether a particular park has too many or too few elephants. Instead, they should look at whether natural ecosystems are functioning properly to support biodiversity.
A day in the sun at a rotting carcass surrounded by lions may not be everyone’s idea of a successful day at the office, but for Dr Andrea Webster, faeces from different species provides valuable clues about how pollutants can affect wildlife populations in protected areas. Dr Webster is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Mammal Research Institute and recent recipient of a PD scholarship from the Oppenheimer Chair for Emerging Scientists in Non-invasive Wildlife Research Programme.
2021 JWO Grant winner, Dr Gideon Idowu, is leading a new continent-wide microplastics study.
The need to mitigate anthropogenic impacts on species and natural systems has resulted in conservation science developing as a major multidisciplinary area of study.