IUCN - The World Conversation Union

Gary works on a programme of conservation advocacy with global institutions – such as The World Bank – by drawing together a range of IUCN members in coordinated efforts. Gary is on secondment to IUCN from the BirdLife International Secretariat.

Gary worked on the conservation of wetland birds in the UK for his PhD at the University of East Anglia (Norwich) and thence in both forests and wetlands in a range of countries – from Canada to Indonesia but mostly in Africa – before beginning work at the BirdLife Secretariat in 1990 on the BP Conservation Awards. He then moved on to the Africa team becoming head of the region for seven years and was subsequently head of the Pacific region for five years before leading advocacy work with European institutions.

Outside work Gary enjoys dancing, food and wine, cigars, his wife’s company and the peace of birdwatching, except that is when his two children are anywhere near.
 

Lindsay Aylesworth is a marine research fellow at IUCN and a master’s student in the Coastal Environmental Management program at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University. At IUCN, Lindsay is involved with WCPA-Marine and marine protected areas. She is also a contact point for several Nicholas Policy Institute workshops at the World Conservation Congress and the Sailing to Barcelona Initiative. At Duke, Lindsay is studying geospatial analysis and its use in addressing MPA planning in the context of climate change. She is also working on the Oceania Bycatch Report for Project GloBAL. After completing her undergraduate at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Lindsay spent several years in the Caribbean working as a research assistant for the Center for Marine Resource Studies (Turks and Caicos Islands) and as a marine biologist for an outdoor adventure school in the British Virgin Islands. She recently published two articles, one on IUU fishing and Patagonian toothfish and the other on corals as endangered species. She enjoys scuba diving, sailing, and seahorses in her spare time.

Working within the IUCN Global Marine Programme, Harlan Cohen has responsibility for IUCN’s international ocean governance work. He advises on IUCN’s policies and positions with respect to a wide range of international oceans and fisheries fora to ensure that IUCN’s positions are coordinated, balanced, practical, and in keeping with resolutions and recommendations as adopted at IUCN’s World Conservation Congresses. Harlan is a former senior member of the U.S. Foreign Service, where he worked on marine, Antarctic and Arctic issues. He served in Curaçao, Frankfurt am Main, Paramaribo, and Geneva. While in Geneva, he focused on environmental and scientific issues and worked with the staff of Secretariats for six global environmental conventions, four regional environmental conventions and with a number of other environmental and scientific organizations. Harlan edited the 9th edition of the Antarctic Treaty Handbook. He has a B.A. from Columbia University, a Ph.D. in modern European history from Cambridge University and also completed a year of graduate study in science, technology and public policy at the George Washington University.
 

Neil Cox is a Programme Officer of the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and Conservation International's Center for Applied Biodiversity Science based in Washington, DC. At present, his primary focus is the Global Amphibian Assessment, a comprehensive review of the conservation status for each of the world’s 5,500 amphibian species. Before joining IUCN, Neil was a Programme Officer for the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Cambridge, UK). At UNEP-WCMC, Neil worked on a wide range of global and regional biodiversity related issues including conservation assessments, species trade (CITES) and biodiversity indicators. Neil has been associated with the IUCN Red List, since 1994, in a variety of capacities including species assessment and data collection and management.

Charlotte's experience in marine conservation spans 15 years and ranges from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate to the establishment of marine parks in East Africa. She also ran the Greenpeace oceans campaign in Washington for two years. Charlotte completed her Master's degree in Marine Policy at the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in Marine Studies at the University of Delaware. In addition to international diplomacy and field work, Charlotte has extensive teaching experience, having taught at the University of Delaware and American University in Washington, DC, as well as spending almost two years teaching marine policy for Boston University in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Charlotte has been associated with IUCN since 1998 and is a member of three of IUCN's commissions, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group, the World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Environmental Law. She co-authored three major IUCN publications on marine biodiversity, international fisheries and high seas resources. Charlotte is currently working with WCS on the establishment of marine protected areas to enhance resilience of coral reefs to climate change in Madagascar and on fisheries sustainability in Morocco. In her spare time, Charlotte is a Divemaster and a budding triathlete.
 

The MPAs Coordination Officer is a jointly funded post by Conservation International, IUCN, The Nature Conservancy, and WWF to help accelerate global efforts on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Elizabeth is presently finishing her PhD at University College London, examining offshore MPAs in the North East Atlantic. 

Elizabeth’s background was originally in Marine Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, and she moved into marine policy work during her graduate studies. She holds Master’s Degrees from Duke University (Environmental Management) and the London School of Economics (History of International Relations) and has published in both the natural and social sciences. She has previously worked for the American Museum of Natural History, the Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, the Texas A&M Marine Mammal Research Program, the Duke Center for International Development and the World Environment Center.

Elizabeth’s areas of expertise include MPAs, Marine Policy/Law, Institutional Effectiveness and Interaction, Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and Environmental Security and Governance in the European Union and former Soviet Union.
 

Eric joined the IUCN Global Marine Program in September 2007, based in Honolulu, Hawaii and attached to the IUCN USA Multilateral Office. Eric’s two program areas for the IUCN Global Marine Programme involve improved sustainability of marine capture fisheries and adaptation to coastal ecosystem responses to climate change. Eric has been working in the coastal and marine science fields for over 15 years, starting at the Pohnpei Authority in the Federated States of Micronesia, Office of the Governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Audubon Society, and most recently for the Blue Ocean Institute. He received his Master’s Degree in Marine Resources Management, Department of Oceanography, Oregon State University, Bachelor of Arts Degree from Wesleyan University, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Eric’s two dozen publications and numerous reports and popular articles are on fisheries bycatch, coastal ecosystem responses to climate change, wetlands ecology and management, site-planning, and community-based protected areas.
 

Debbie Good is the Human Resource Manager and the North America/Caribbean Membership Focal Point of the IUCN-USA Multilateral office. She also serves as Executive Assistant to the Executive Director.

Debbie began her career in the international environmental field in 1972 at the US Environmental Protection Agency where she worked in the Office of International Activities on various environmental issues. After spending 18 years in the government, Debbie joined Environmental Defense (an IUCN member), working with the International Counsel on climate change issues. She joined IUCN-US in 1994 as the Executive Assistant to the Executive Director and soon thereafter took on management of human resources and membership for the office. Outside of work Debbie enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren, and skiing.
 

Mr. Hajost is the Executive Director of the USA Multilateral office of IUCN - The World Conservation Union. In this capacity Mr. Hajost is responsible for coordinating IUCN’s relations with the major multilateral institutions based in the United States such as the GEF, the World Bank, UNDP, IDB and the UN; building and maintaining governmental and non-governmental linkages with the private sector in the United States; and working with IUCN members to promote international conservation.

Mr. Hajost came to IUCN from Environmental Defense, a major US nongovernmental public interest environmental organization, where he served as International Counsel. Prior to joining Environmental Defense, Mr Hajost served as Acting Associate Administrator and as Associate General Counsel for International Activities at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Before his tenure at EPA, Mr. Hajost was a senior lawyer at the US State Department responsible for oceans, international environmental and Polar affairs. Mr. Hajost earned bachelors and masters degrees in history from the University of Dallas and Miami University respectively and a juris doctor degree from the University of Toledo College of Law where he was valedictorian and received the Dean’s Award as outstanding graduate. He has also studied European Community law in Brussels and at The Hague Academy of International Law.
 

Originally from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Megan Hansen comes to IUCN after recently completing two years with the US Peace Corps in West Africa. Her primary role while there was to incorporate environmental education into local school curriculums and to manage a village-wide well digging grant project. She has also worked as a park ranger in Glacier National Park, monitored turtle nesting sites in Costa Rica, raft guided in North Carolina, and has studied at the University of Seville and University of Edinburgh. She received a BA in International Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a concentration in global economics, trade, environment and development. Megan will also serve as the Gender Focal Point for the IUCN-USA Multilateral Office.
 

Michael Hoffmann, a South African national, is based in the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative between IUCN’s Species Survival Commission and the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International. His main focus is helping to coordinate and facilitate initiatives aimed at assessing the global status of biodiversity, and advising on the use of the resulting data for conservation planning and policy.

Prior to joining IUCN, Mike was employed in the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, where he used IUCN Red List data to help inform CI’s conservation priorities, primarily at the global scale. Mike coordinated a major revision of CI’s biodiversity hotspots analysis, contributed to a global analysis on the effectiveness of the protected areas network, and provided institutional support to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Alliance for Zero Extinction.

Mike's main area of expertise lies in the field of mammalogy, having worked at the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford, UK. He is a member of the IUCN-SSC Canid and Afrotheria Specialist Groups. Besides having co-authored papers in Science and Nature, he has edited five books, including the forthcoming The Mammals of Africa, with Jonathan Kingdon, and Threatened Amphibians of the World, the latter to be based on the results of the Global Amphibian Assessment.
 

Dr. Hohn received a M.S degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle. After a brief time with the Washington State Fish and Game Department as a coastal zone biologist, she joined the US FWS as an endangered species biologist. Since that time she has worked in every major program of the FWS and currently serves as the Assistant Regional Director for International Conservation in the Alaska Region.

Dr. Hohn joined the staff of IUCN-US in 2001 as Senior Conservation Advisor while on secondment from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. During her secondment she maintained a broad portfolio of issues in support of the USA Multilateral Office's work priorities, including: (1) participation in the drafting of IUCN's Arctic Strategy and Action Plan; (2) lead staff on the very successful White Water to Blue Water Partnership Initiative for the Wider Caribbean Basin; (3) liaison to the CIS Moscow IUCN office; (4) Chair of multidisciplinary discussion group on Haiti's environmental crisis; (5) secured a grant from the US State Department and worked with NOAA and the Caribbean Conservation Association to conduct a "No Anchoring Areas" workshop as requested by the Island States of Barbados, Aruba, Grenada and Jamaica; (6) secured the first IUCN member from the Island State of Haiti.

In 2005, IUCN-US and the US FWS signed a Memorandum of Understanding to ensure continuity of joint work in the circumpolar arctic begun during the secondment and to enhance and build upon the already successful partnership with the US FWS.
 

Narinder Kakar is IUCN’s UN Permanent Observer in New York. Narinder will devote half of his time to working for IUCN and the other half to his work as Director of the UN Liaison Office in New York of the University for Peace. Narinder also serves as Visiting Professor to the University, teaching a course on the United Nations System.

An Indian citizen, Narinder has extensive experience of the UN, including 30 years' work with UNDP, both in New York and at country level, as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative. He also was associated with the work of the IPCC.

Narinder obtained his B.A. from the Delhi Polytechnic and received a Diploma in Journalism from the Institute of Journalism in Delhi. He also received an MBA degree from Haceteppe University in Turkey. He was a Research Associate at Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA, in 1994, carrying out work in the field of social development.

He has served on a number of important boards and committees, including the UN Joint Staff Pension Board and the Board of Directors of the UN Federal Credit Union, of which he was Chairman. Within the United Nations he served as Chairperson of the UN Joint Appeals Board for a number of years.
 

Nick Kulibaba is the Senior Development Officer of the USA Multilateral office of IUCN. He is responsible for resource development and the promotion of funding partnerships on behalf of IUCN and its members. Nick has thirty years of experience in international economic development, with emphasis on natural resource management, sustainable agriculture and trade. 

During his career he has been an advisor to numerous regional organizations in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America and has extensive experience in the development of complex regional initiatives. He has also carried out investment strategy development and international risk assessment for companies in the extraction, agribusiness and manufacturing sectors. Nick has broad geographic experience, with a career emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. He is active in the international biodiversity conservation community, serves as a technical advisor to a number of native plant conservation NGOS and has an avid interest in floristics.

Nick holds degrees from Allegheny College and the University of Oxford and is a former Fellow of the Center for Developing Area Studies at McGill University.
 

For the past 10 years, Jen has worked as a marine conservation scientist and educator who aims to reach new constituencies with a positive conservation message in order to grow collaborative networks from diverse regions, backgrounds, and cultures around the world. 

She received her Master’s degree in Applied Ecology and Conservation from the University of East Anglia (England) with a focus on community-based conservation and education as a tool to reduce poaching of endangered sea turtles in Costa Rica. Through a myriad of ocean projects, she has worked with non-profit, government, and private sectors such as the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Sea Mammal Research Unit, Environmental Media Fund, Ocean Institute, and National Marine Fisheries Service.

She also has extensive field experience and has researched endangered Hawaiian monk seals, albatross, and green sea turtles while living on one of the worlds most remote coral atoll chains, now known as the Papah?naumoku?kea Marine National Monument. During this time she assisted National Geographic’s CRITTERCAM series and Jean-Michel Cousteau’s PBS series Voyage to Kure. Prior to Hawaii, she joined Ocean Alliance's R/V Odyssey expedition, a five-year scientific voyage to study the health of the world’s oceans. Through this experience, she sailed across the Pacific Ocean collaborating with cultures across Baja, Galapagos Islands, Marquises, Republic of Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.

In her spare time, Jen trains in dance, is an avid hiker and photographer, and remains actively involved as a mentor with international youth programs such as Ocean Revolution.
 

Herner is a citizen of the Federated States of Micronesia. He attended the College of Micronesia (FSM) and the University of Guam and is currently taking classes through the World Campus (on-line) of Penn State University. As Administrative Coordinator for the IUCN-US Office, Herner provides administrative support to the Executive Director, Finance and Human Resource Officers specifically and basically keeps the office running.
 

Dr. Dan Salkeld is a Research Fellow in IUCN's Washington office. He has a B.Sc (Hons) in Zoology from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and a PhD in Tropical Ecology from James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, and has worked as a biologist on mammals, birds and reptiles in Australia, Europe and South America. His interests lie in the relationships between wildlife disease, public health and conservation. He is currently collaborating with California State University - Fullerton and Colorado State University on a project examining the ecology of plague in prairie dog and small mammal communities in the western USA and developing a strategy for IUCN-US on the linkage between infectious disease and conservation.
 

Ang joined the IUCN US Multilateral Office as Financial Officer on April 06, 1998, and was named Senior Finance Manager in April 2008. Prior to joining the IUCN US Multilateral Office, Ang was the Senior Finance Officer of the IUCN Nepal office from December 1992 to March 31, 1998. Prior to IUCN Nepal, Ang worked for projects under the Government of Nepal jointly funded by the Government of Nepal and donors (such as Swiss Development Corporation, USAID, UNDP, World Bank and AsDB in Nepal).

Ang Jangbu Sherpa is a Certified Public Accountant from USA. Ang is a graduate of Tribuvan University in Nepal and Ang also received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree from Strayer University in Washington DC. Ang is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Ang is married to Ms. Phurba Sherpa and has two boys, Kalden and Nima Gyalgen.
 

Martin Sneary is a Senior Information Management Adviser, working on a shared programme of work with BirdLife International and Conservation International, splitting his time between Cambridge and Washington DC. In his capacity he is involved with the development of a number of software applications supporting the compilation, management and reporting/analysis of scientific data, notably for species and priority sites for conservation, the presentation of these data on the web site, and training. On the fun side, as a mad keen wind surfer he's often found in rubber battling 40 knot winds and can occasionally be seen in the field with a pair of bins hanging around his neck.
 

Chris Spence is currently on assignment with the IUCN-USA Multilateral Office and is based in New York working with the IUCN Permanent Observer Mission to the UN. He is Deputy Director of IISD Reporting Services and editor of Linkages Update. After joining the ENB team in 1998, Chris has worked in various roles, including as editor of Linkages Journal (1999-2001) and climate change team leader (1999-2002 and 2005-). After consulting for various UN agencies and other organizations in 2003 and 2004, and completing a book on global warming, Chris returned full time to IISD Reporting Services in early 2005 as the new Deputy Director. Before he joined IISD, Chris was a political researcher and speechwriter (1992-95), investigative journalist (1995-99) and lobbyist (1997-98).

Erich Vogt was a lecturer at the Environmental Design and Rural development Department at the Ontario-based University of Guelph, and Senior Consultant at the Creative Associates International/CAII in Washington, DC and Networked Intelligence for Development/NIDI in Toronto. He worked with a team of media development and practioners and research associates designing media and communication vision strategies and programs for NGOs and multilateral and bilateral development agencies. He conducted cutting-edge research on the development of cultural industries (radio, television, film, music, multimedia, ICTs) in developing and transition countries at both instiutions. 

Erich was also a Team leader at the World Bank's External Relations Department, where he worked closely with the World Bank's president James Wolfensohn; Managing Editor and Lead Information Officer of the World Bank incubated Development Gateway Portal; and the head of the German Friedrich-Ebert Foundation's UN liaison office in Geneva and Bonn.

Erich holds a Ph.D. in Political Economics from the Free University of Berlin and an M.A. in Political Science from Indiana University. He was a professional journalism fellow at Stanford University and a member of the German National Swim team (many years ago). He has two daughters.
 

John has worked both at grassroots level and at top levels of international institutions to address the role of biodiversity conservation in the achievement of social and economic development goals. 

John Waugh’s professional career has taken him from grassroots environmental organizing in Montana, working as a wildlands firefighter for the US Forest Service in the mountain west of the United States, and as a park ranger for the US National Park Service at Yosemite NP, Sequoia NP, and Big Cypress National Preserve, through project management for WWF projects on protected area system design, management planning, and NGO development in West Africa, to working for IUCN. In IUCN Mr. Waugh has served as a specialist in protected area management policy, studying mechanisms for managing information, building capacity, and sustainable finance within international organizations and instruments. He has coordinated marine policy for IUCN, and served a representative of IUCN with key multilateral agencies including the UN General Assembly.

In recent years, his professional focus has been on the development of innovative mechanisms for linking conservation and development objectives, looking at linkages between diverse policy objectives such as trade and invasive species, biodiversity loss and emerging infectious disease, and at protected areas and climate adaptation.

Mr Waugh - a US national - was born in Florida in 1956. He lived abroad for extended periods in his youth. After completing the Intensive Humanities Program at the University of Montana, including economics, philosophy, and wilderness studies, he attended Santa Rosa College for Park Ranger training.
 

Louisa Wood started work as a Technical Advisor on Marine Protected Areas for IUCN's Global Marine Programme in January 2008. She is working on a number of exciting global outreach projects in support of the implementation of the IUCN-WCPA Marine Plan of Action, based out of San Francisco, California. Louisa recently graduated with a PhD in Geography, from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her thesis was entitled 'The Global Network of Marine Protected Areas: Developing Baselines and Identifying Priorities', and was a collaborative project between the Sea Around Us Project (led by Dr. Daniel Pauly at UBC's Fisheries Centre), World Wildlife Fund, UNEP-WCMC and IUCN-WCPA.

Louisa has a BA(Hons) in Zoology from the University of Cambridge, UK, and an MSc in Tropical Coastal Management from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Louisa has been working in the field of marine protected areas, and their role in marine resource management and biodiversity conservation since 2001, and has worked as a consultant for various organistions including Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network. Louisa has been a member of IUCN-WCPA Marine since 2006 and a Board Member of the Pacific Marine Analysis and Research Association (PacMARA) since 2007.