Cat Clarke is a PhD Candidate within the Department of Anthropology at University College London, a visiting PhD Researcher in Social Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, and a CONDJUST Affiliate Researcher. 
Prior to starting her PhD, Cat worked for several years in Cameroon, as Country Lead for Forest Peoples Programme, where she supported Indigenous Baka and Bagyeli communities to develop political and legal strategies to secure their lands. Cat remains connected to FPP’s work through her role as Associate. She holds an MSc in Anthropology, Environment & Development from UCL.

Rosaleen Duffy joined the department in September 2016, having previously held posts at SOAS University of London, University of Manchester and University of Lancaster. Rosaleen uses a political ecology lens in order to understand global environmental change. She is particularly interested in the global politics of biodiversity conservation, and focuses on global environmental governance, wildlife trafficking, poaching, transfrontier conservation and tourism. Recently, her work has sought to understand the growing links between global security and biodiversity conservation. In 2016 she was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant for BIOSEC – Biodiversity and Security: Understanding environmental crime, illegal wildlife trade and threat finance. She led the ESRC funded Beastly Business project (2021-23), which examined green crime, political ecology and illegal wildlife trade in European species. She is a fellow of the inter-disciplinary Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) and a member of the Sheffield Animals Research Colloquium (ShARC) and the international Political Ecology Network (POLLEN).

Katherine Homewood studied Zoology at Oxford and gained her PhD in Anthropology at the University of London. After working at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, she joined UCL in 1980 as lecturer and Tutor in Human Sciences, an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental degree. She is now Professor of Human Ecology in Anthropology at UCL. The Human Ecology Research Group she convene integrates natural and social sciences approaches to interactions of conservation and development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. She works primarily on the interaction of conservation and development in pastoralist systems in East Africa, focusing on the implications of environmental policies and practice for people’s livelihoods and welfare, and on the implications of people’s resource use for biodiversity. She publishes in both natural and social sciences journals and have directed several European Union- and DFID-funded international collaborative research programmes in East and West Africa and supervised around 40 PhD students, working mainly in a range of African countries but also in Latin America and Central Asia, most of whom have gone on to academic posts, government or NGO work.

Prakash Kashwan is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and the Chair of the Environmental Justice Concentration in the Master of Public Policy program at the Heller School for Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University. Prakash addresses questions about the intersecting pursuits of environmental protection, socioeconomic development, and radical climate action. He is the author of Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico (Oxford University Press 2017), the Editor of Climate Justice in India (Cambridge University Press 2022), one of the Editors of the journal Environmental Politics (Taylor & Francis), and co-founder of Climate Justice Network (with Professor Lauren MacLean of Indiana University, Bloomington ). Kashwan’s work is founded on multi-, and inter-disciplinary academic training, which includes a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), a Master’s in Forestry Management), and a Ph. D. in Public Policy awarded under the tutelage of late Professor Elinor Ostrom, a political economist, who was the joint winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. Prakash’s research, teaching, and writings also benefit from his 25 years-long engagements with global and international environmental governance. Prakash has been a member of the expert group convened by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) for the Scoping of the Assessment of Transformative Change and was a member of the Academic Working Group on International Governance of Climate Engineering convened by the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment, Washington D.C.

Naomi Kipuri worked as teacher at Narok Secondary school (1975 -1976), Kenya National Archives, Head, Oral Traditions Division (1976-1979); University of Nairobi, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Institute of African Studies (1979-1990); Coordinator, Arid Lands Resource Management (ALARM), a network for Eastern Africa (mainly on policy issues touching on pastoralists); Executive Director, Arid Lands Institute, an NGO Policy and concerned with policy and Pastoralist development concerns 1990 to 2016. She has also served as a consultant in development issues in Kenya & in East Africa and also played advisory role and member of various Working Groups including for African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). She served on the UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous People. Presently she is involved in County/community issues relating to documentation of historical and cultural matters including establishment of a museum & cultural centre for the County Government of Kajiado. She is the founder of the Foundation for Indigenous culture and knowledge systems and has a huge interest in women issues.

Richard Ladle has a degree in Zoology (Newcastle University) and a doctorate in theoretical ecology (Oxford University). With over 25 years of experience as a University teacher, he was the first Director of the MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at Oxford University (2003-2009) and is currently Titular Professor of Conservation Science at the Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil (2012-2020) where he studies human-nature interactions,conservation biogeography and the use of new technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of wildlife conservation.

Milagre Nvunga trained as a forester and began her career as a junior officer in the Forestry and Wildlife Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture in Mozambique. Later on she held some senior positions within the Mozambican Government including Director of the National Forest Research Centre and National Director for Forestry and Wildlife, as well as National Director for Natural Resources Management and Senior Policy Advisor in the Ministry for the Coordination of Environmental Affairs. Milagre has extensive international experience and has worked as a Forest Project Officer for UNDP (Forestry Capacity Program – Sustainable Energy and Environment Division) and the UN Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. Her last international position was with the Ford Foundation, where she served as a Program Officer for Environment and Community Development in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) based in Nairobi, for six years. In January 2008 Milagre (and her partner, Andrew Kingman) moved back to Mozambique to set up MICAIA – a Mozambican hybrid institution combining MICAIA Foundation (not-for-profit) and Eco- MICAIA Limited (social enterprise). MICAIA was also registered as a charity in the UK. Milagre is the Executive Director of the MICAIA Foundation, whose headquarters are in Chimoio, in Central Mozambique. The development of environmentally sound, participatory strategies for community development in poor rural areas based both on people’s rights and responsibilities as human beings and citizens, has been the main thread underlining Milagre’s working experience, particularly in the last 20 years.

For more than two decades, Brian O’Donnell has been a leading land and wildlife conservationist.  Brian works as the director of the Campaign for Nature, an effort supported by the Wyss Foundation to increase global targets and financing for protected areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity.  Prior to leading Campaign for Nature, Brian helped develop a new long-term protected area financing strategy while consulting with the Frankfurt Zoological Society. From 2007 through early 2017, Brian worked as the Executive Director of the Conservation Lands Foundation. Brian Led the foundation’s efforts to protect, restore, and expand the U.S.  Bureau of Land Management’s National Conservation Lands. At CLF, Brian led a campaign that protected millions of acres of land as National Monuments. Prior to joining CLF, Brian was the National Public Lands Director for Trout Unlimited (TU). He led TU’s efforts to protect U.S. National Forest Roadless Areas, permanently protect more than a million acres in the Wyoming Range, and secure Oregon’s Copper-Salmon Wilderness. Brian also worked for The Wilderness Society where he led campaigns resulting in the congressional designation of the Black Rock Desert and Sloan Canyon National Conservation Areas and dozens of new legislated Wilderness areas throughout Nevada. Brian has a degree in economics from Rollins College.  Brian was a member of the inaugural class of Presidential Leadership Scholars. Brian serves on the Board of Directors of the Alaska Wilderness League and New Mexico Wilderness Association. He lives in Durango, Colorado, United States. 

Deborah Delgado Pugley is an associate professor and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. She also is a visiting scholar at KU Leuven and Ghent University. Delgado-Pugley has researched environmental and climate policies at the international and territorial level. Her field experience centers around the Amazon regions of Bolivia and Peru, where she has led research teams on climate change, Indigenous movements, human rights, natural resource management, and gender. During the last ten years, she has followed the UNFCCC process as a multiscaled agenda. Delgado-Pugley completed a PhD in international development (Catholic University of Louvain) and sociology (EHESS Paris School of Social Sciences Studies).

For over 15 years, Ameyali has worked with Indigenous Peoples and local communities on a range of issues, including environmental governance, sustainable livelihoods, agro-ecology, and human rights. Her work has focused on advocating for the outsized role Indigenous Peoples and local communities play in the stewardship of nature, on strengthening the collective capacity of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and on supporting them so they can meaningfully engaging in international policy processes, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Her background is in social and environmental governance and her passion is in providing Indigenous Peoples and local communities with the support necessary for them to continue to care for their territories and ways of life on their own terms. Ameyali has a PhD and MSc from the University of Oxford and is currently the Deputy Chair of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (IUCN-CEESP).

Kartik is an evolutionary ecologist with a love for both mountains and marine life, and an occasional writer of children’s fiction, keen guitarist, drummer and basketball player.  As faculty at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, he works on the ecology and evolution of frogs, reptiles, birds, plants and marine fauna. His group works on the evolutionary biogeography of different taxa, and on the behaviour of mixed species groups of birds and reef fish. In addition, he has established long term research programmes for different species of sea turtles across India. He has recently initiated work on sharks and rays of the Indian coast, and on reef associated organisms in the Andaman Islands. Kartik is a founding trustee of Dakshin Foundation, where he oversees work on marine flagships and community wellbeing, and a founding editor of the magazine, Current Conservation. He is the author of the book From Soup to Superstar, a historical account of sea turtle conservation in India. He is also a very important half of the dastardly writing duo Kart el Shockington.

Professor Bob Smith’s work as a conservation scientist has mainly focused on identifying priority areas for conservation and designing protected area networks. Much of this work has involved leading long-running projects in Southern Africa and the UK, but Bob has worked on projects in 22 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. Hiss research also encompasses a broad range of conservation topics, including understanding spatial patterns of deforestation and human-wildlife conflict. In particular, Bob has published seminal work on the influence of corruption in conservation and the role of marketing in conservation. Bob is also an Honorary Senior Fellow at the United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre, the Founder of the Izele online conservation social network, on the Editorial Board of the journal Oryx and a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. Bob is a member of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE).

Lourdes Vera is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Department of Environment and Sustainability at UB. As an environmental sociologist and civic scientist, she works with communities living near oil and gas development to monitor their air for contaminants. She also serves on the coordinating committee of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, envisioning and building digital tools and research infrastructures for environmental data justice. Her interdisciplinary work spans environmental science, social science, and critical theory with articles appearing in Atmospheric Environment, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, and Mobilization.