Darwin Expert Committee

Introduction

The Darwin Expert Committee is one of the Biodiversity Challenge Funds Advisory Groups, and further information for these groups can be found on the Resources for Advisory Groups Members page.

The Darwin Expert Committee consists of a range of experts from our stakeholders advising Defra on the development of the initiative, reviewing applications and making technical recommendations.

Membership

Chair

EJ Milner-Gulland 

EJ’s research covers a range of areas within the broad area of understanding, predicting and mitigating biodiversity impacts, and monitoring and evaluating conservation interventions for their social and biodiversity outcomes. This includes large programmes on food systems, Nature Positive transitions, the wildlife trade, and social justice and equity. She aims to ensure that all the research in her group is addressing issues identified by practitioners and policy-makers, is carried out collaboratively with end-users, and builds the capacity of early-career conservationists, particularly in low-income countries. EJ currently works at the University of Oxford.

Members

Amy Dickman

Amy has spent over 25 years working on the interface between biodiversity conservation and human development in sub-Saharan Africa. Her particular focus is working with local communities to co-develop strategies to reduce human-wildlife conflict and improve tangible benefits to rural people from coexisting alongside threatened large carnivores. Amy is a Professor of Wildlife Conservation and Director of WildCRU at the University of Oxford.

Anastasiya Timoshyna 

Anastasiya is the Director of TRAFFIC’s European Programme Office. She has over 16 years of experience working on the issues of global wildlife trade, from applying market-based approaches to supply chain sustainability to supporting policy change at the national and international levels, including in CBD and CITES contexts. She worked across wide geographical range, including in Nepal, China, South-East and Central Europe, Southern Africa, and Viet Nam among others.

Chris Lyal 

Chris is a taxonomist focussing on insects, with experience carrying out research, training and taxonomic capacity building in many countries. He has had long-term engagement with the CBD, including as member of the Secretariat and chairing expert groups, and he has extensive involvement with Access and Benefit-Sharing and implementation of the Nagoya Protocol.

Chris McOwen

Chris is an interdisciplinary scientist whose research spans local, national, regional and global scales, combining experience in conservation policy, marine ecology, ecosystem modelling, fisheries science and spatial conservation planning. In his current role at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre he provides oversight, management, and scientific lead to technical projects at the science-policy interface.

Debbie Pain

Debbie has worked in conservation science and delivery with NGOs and universities for the last 40 years. She has managed teams delivering science capacity building, conservation, and integrated conservation and poverty reduction projects in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe and the UK Overseas Territories. She has particular expertise in environmental toxicology and in diagnosing causes of population declines and finding solutions.

Dilys Roe

Dilys is a principal researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development in the UK and Chair of the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi). She has 30 years experience working on community-based conservation, governance, equity and rights, and on the links between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction. Her main geographical focus is Southern and Eastern Africa.

Faith Muniale

Faith has rich experience in community participation in biodiversity conservation and natural resources management in African countries and beyond. Her scope has been supporting locally led organisations to design conservation projects and build their capacity to deliver impactful interventions for biodiversity and livelihoods. At World Vision Kenya, she is currently leading the largest land restoration programme in Africa working with grass root organisations to restore degraded land and generate carbon credits.

Glyn Davies

Glyn is a leader in international conservation and development, with 40 years’ experience in government agencies, NGOs and universities in: Asia, Africa, the European Commission, and the UK. He focuses on delivery of effective conservation measures, with credible narratives, that engage local stakeholders, including the business sector. He is also concerned with policy development which supports biodiversity conservation.

James MacGregor

James is an environmental economist focused on supporting better decisions over natural resources which integrate climate, livelihoods, and conservation. He has had long-term engagements as an advisor to investors, governments and donors across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, including National Parks, large infrastructure, and agriculture. He also has experience with CITES, UNFCCC, and IUCN focused on valuation, private sector involvement, and conservation in the wild.

James Gordon

Jamie holds degrees in Forestry, Economics and Geography. He has worked for over 25 years on issues related to the sustainable management of trees and forests, particularly in landscapes managed by the rural poor. His current work includes rights-based approaches to forest finance, improving the sustainability of Amazonian cattle ranching and community monitoring. Jamie currently works for WWF.

Jo Elliot

Jo's early career was as a banking and strategy consultant, and she has taken these skills into the nature conservation space, based first in Indonesia and then Kenya, working for multiple international and local NGOs as well as donor agencies. Jo currently works at Fauna & Flora. Her technical focus is on enabling sustainable finance and incentives at local level and releasing local capacity to deliver impact, as well as on recognising and realising positive nature-climate-poverty linkages. She has designed, delivered and assessed impact in multiple conservation projects across many countries, and spent several years at DFID (now FCDO) as a Rural Livelihoods Advisor where she led the DFID ‘Wildlife and Poverty’ research/policy study.

Katharine Abernethy

Kate is a dual British-Gabonese national who has worked in terrestrial conservation in Central Africa since 1994. She has co-managed the science programme in Lopé National Park, alongside the Gabon National Park Agency, for the past 25 years. During this time she has participated in delivering a wide range of conservation and development initiatives in the region and training an international research team of post-docs, PhD students, field staff and project management staff. Kate is a Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Stirling.

Mark Infield

Mark has worked in Africa, Asia and Europe with communities, charities, governments, the private sector and as an independent consultant. His work has focused on the interface between protected areas and the economic, social, cultural and political context in which they exist and must be managed. He has filled different roles and used different approaches to conserving nature including: designing and managing protected areas; supporting sustainable resources use and nature-based enterprises; and devising policies and practices for conservation. He has held technical and management positions, worked at local and landscape scales, delivered species and ecosystem conservation, undertaken project design and led project review processes.

Matthew Gollock

Matthew has over 25 years’ experience researching and conserving aquatic species. He is interested in migratory species – particularly elasmobranchs and anguillid eels – and the management and policy mechanisms required to conserve their unique life histories. He has a particular interest in the species-focussed UN Conventions, CITES and CMS and currently works for the Zoological Society of London.

Mike Harrison

Mike has 40 years' experience in research, conservation and livelihood development across many biomes and countries. This includes working as a project developer and manager, commissioning projects for DFID (now FCDO), and leading a major conservation organisation.

Nigel Asquith

Nigel is the Director of Strategy at Fundación Natura Bolivia where his team has helped create more than 90 municipal incentive-based conservation programs. From 2005-2008, he directed the transition of the EcoFund Foundation to become a strategic conservation investor in northern Ecuador. Nigel’s technical expertise is in plant-animal relations in neotropical forests, ecosystem service valuation, policy analysis, and the use market-based tools for environmental management. He was a research fellow at Harvard’s Sustainability Science Program in 2008-2009 and 2013-2014 and is a 2005 Kinship Conservation Fellow.

Noëlle Kumpel

Noëlle specialises in advising on stronger nature and climate policy and implementation through international conventions and other policy mechanisms in her role at BirdLife International. She has varied, interdisciplinary experience and expertise which bridges applied conservation, research, project management and policy, including five years in the field in Africa and Asia. Noëlle currently works at BirdLife International.

Patricia Mupeta-Muyamwa

Patricia is a natural resource governance specialist with twenty-five years of experience in natural resource governance, human rights, environmental and social safeguards, indigenous & community-led conservation, protected area management, and rural development. Patricia obtained a doctorate from the University of Florida, School of Natural Resources and Environment in 2012. Her research examined factors that lead to improved local democratic governance in community conservation programmes in Botswana and Zambia. Patricia currently works at The Nature Conservancy.

Serah Munguti

Serah has over 20 years experience in natural resource policy formulation and review, river basin and wetland conservation, land use and environmental planning, environmental assessments, community development, nature based enterprises and natural resource governance. Since 2007, Serah has worked in the Tana River Delta in Kenya where she coordinated 18 national government agencies, two county governments and 106 villages to formulate and endorse a land use plan informed by strategic environmental assessment. In 2016 the land use plan won the Royal Town Planning Institute’s International Award for planning excellence. Serah currently works at Fauna & Flora.

Susan Snyman

Sue is Director of Research at the African Leadership University’s School of Wildlife Conservation, with over 20 years’ experience in resource/environmental economics, community development in and around conservation areas, nature-based tourism and other biodiversity economy activities and innovative sustainable conservation finance in Africa.

Thomas Ratsakatika

Tom has extensive experience leading sustainable agribusiness, climate change, and renewable energy projects in Tanzania, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also brings technical expertise in harnessing artificial intelligence to analyse environmental datasets and support biodiversity conservation. Tom has worked closely with national governments, private enterprises, development banks and NGOs to achieve dual environment and development outcomes.

Xiaoting Hou-Jones

Xiaoting has worked for or led a diversity of projects that seek to conserve biodiversity and reduce multidimensional poverty and inequality spanning 26 countries. She has held various positions in local government, NGOs, businesses, research organisations and facilitated multi-stakeholder dialogues which all contributed to her strong project management, research synthesis and facilitation skills. She is the Government and Policy Lead at Doughnut Economics Action Labs, putting new economics thinking into actions and exploring policies and governance models that can drive systemic transformation to help people and nature thrive together.

Ex-officio members

Ed McManus

Ed has worked in marine science for 20 years, and currently works at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. His career started in fisheries management in temperate, tropical and polar regions working closely with fishing communities. He has extension experience working on biodiversity conservation and capacity building programmes, and working with countries in relation to their commitments to Marine Protected Areas targets and reporting, and he has also worked on MPA management measures in the Wider Caribbean.

Monique Simmonds

Monique's research focuses on the traditional and economic uses of plants and fungi, their potential as cosmetic, novel food, pharmaceutical and agrochemical leads, and as sources of sustainably-harvested products. As Deputy Director of Science at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, she is also involved in the development and implementation of their science strategy, which includes promoting plant and fungal-based solutions to current global challenges.