The covid-19 response and wild meat: a call for local context

Jeferson Paula

Background

My career has spanned the third sector, advocacy and policy and academic sectors, from establishing an environmental and skills-based training programme for vulnerable 16-25-year olds in a grass-roots NGO in London; to researching and advocating for sustainable and equitable agricultural practices across sub-Saharan Africa; to exploring the impacts of protected area creation on rural livelihoods in Cambodia; to drawing on local ecological knowledge to monitor species populations and their threats in Cameroon; and, most recently, to co-designing locally-managed natural resource monitoring programmes with indigenous peoples and local communities in Kenya and Vietnam.

I’ve long been fascinated by the inextricable link between people and nature, and believed that the voices and knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities should play a central role in developing conservation policy and practice. I enjoy researching and developing robust, cost-effective and ethical approaches to monitoring biodiversity in challenging environments, and for engaging with indigenous peoples and local communities. I love drawing on interdisciplinary methods to research socio-ecological systems, and translating research into outputs that inform conservation practice and policy.