Julia Latham's Page

What is your name?

Julia

What is your job title?

PhD student

What organisation do you work for?

University of York

What aspects of biodiversity are you most interested in?

Access and benefit sharing, Biodiversity targets, CBD negotiations, Communicating biodiversity, Climate change, Ecosystem services, Education, Endangered species, Forests, Invasive species, Poverty and biodiversity, Protected areas

What languages do you speak?

English, Basic Swahili

Please use this section to introduce yourself in more detail, adding any other relevant information not included in your previous answers. The site administrator will use this answer to decide whether to approve your membership

I am an ecologist with a keen interest in adopting an inter-disciplinary approach to conservation issues. My doctoral research investigates the socio-economic impacts of forest conservation policy in Tanzania; with a particular focus on the new UN initiative to mitigate climate change called REDD (payments for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).
Prior to my PhD I have been working on the Living Planet Index, a collaborative project between WWF and ZSL at the Institute of Zoology in London. The Living Planet Index measures global trends in vertebrate diversity based on over 8,000 population time series and it is one of the indicators designated for immediate testing by the Convention on Biological Diversity as a means of measuring progress towards the 2010 target. Before Joining the Institute of Zoology I conducted my MSc at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, for which my thesis investigates the ecology of the invasive ship rat (Rattus rattus) and the potential for competition with the native and endangered North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli). I have also previously spent some time in Kenya assisting a University of Cambridge human-elephant conflict research project.