Type | University department |
---|---|
Established | 1989 |
Location | |
Campus | Semi-rural |
Website | research |
The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) is a subdivision of the University of Kent, started in 1989 and named in honour of the famous British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It was the first institute in the United Kingdom to award undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and diplomas in the fields of conservation biology, ecotourism, and biodiversity management. It consists of 22 academic staff, as well as an advisory board consisting of 14 conservationists from government, business and the NGO sector. [1]
DICE's graduate degree programme began in 1991 with a class of seven international students. Since then it has trained over 1,200 people from 101 countries, including 322 people from Lower- and Middle-Income countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America. The founder of DICE is Professor Ian Swingland, who retired from the University of Kent in 1999, and the first Director was Dr. Mike Walkey, who retired in 2002. [2]
In 2019 DICE was awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for "pioneering education, capacity building and research in global nature conservation to protect species and ecosystems and benefit people". [3]
Notable alumni include:
Gerald Malcolm Durrell, was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals (1956). Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series and one television film. He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell.
The Global 500 Roll of Honour was an award given from 1987 to 2003 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The award recognized the environmental achievements of individuals and organizations around the world. A successor system of UNEP awards called Champions of the Earth started in 2005.
Jeremy John Crosby Mallinson was an English conservationist and author associated with the Durrell Wildlife Park and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, where he was director emeritus.
The Indianapolis Prize is a biennial prize awarded by the Indianapolis Zoo to individuals for "extraordinary contributions to conservation efforts" affecting one or more animal species.
Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil is an Indian ecologist, academic, writer, columnist and the founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, a research forum under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Science. He is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India and the Head of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) of 2010, popularly known as the Gadgil Commission.
Simon Asher Levin is an American ecologist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the director of the Center for BioComplexity at Princeton University. He specializes in using mathematical modeling and empirical studies in the understanding of macroscopic patterns of ecosystems and biological diversities.
Nalini Nadkarni (1954) is an American forest ecologist who pioneered the study of Costa Rican rain forest canopies. Using mountain climbing equipment to make her ascent, Nadkarni first took an inventory of the canopy in 1981, followed by two more inventories in 1984. She is also known with a characteristic nickname, «the queen of the forest canopy».
Ian Richard Swingland is a British conservationist, convicted in 2017 of conspiring to commit fraud by false representation. He founded DICE at the University of Kent in 1989, recognised as one of the first interdisciplinary research and postgraduate training institutes in the world concentrating on biodiversity, communities and sustainable development. While at DICE he served as director and was elected to the first chair in Conservation Biology in the United Kingdom.
George Beals Schaller is an American mammalogist, biologist, conservationist and author. Schaller is recognized by many as the world's preeminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Born in Berlin, Schaller grew up in Germany, but moved to Missouri as a teen. He is vice president of Panthera Corporation and serves as chairman of their Cat Advisory Council. Schaller is also a senior conservationist at the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
Bahar Dutt is an Indian television journalist and environmental editor and columnist for CNN-IBN.
Priya Davidar is an Indian scientific researcher, conservation biologist, scholar, and author. She retired as a Professor at Pondicherry University and has conducted ecological research in different regions of India. She has authored a few books, including Whispers from the Wild, co-authored with E.R.C Davidar and published by Penguin India books. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012. She is actively involved with the conservation of forests and wildlife. She has published about 100 papers in scientific journals.
Aparajita Datta is an Indian wildlife ecologist who works for the Nature Conservation Foundation. Her research in the dense tropical forests of Arunachal Pradesh has successfully focused on hornbills, saving them from poachers. In 2013, she was one of eight conservationists to receive the Whitley Award.
Emilia Patrícia Medici is a Brazilian conservation biologist who focuses on tapirs. She is the founder of the Lowland Tapir Conservation Initiative. She has published peer-reviewed research on animal movements in the Anthropocene with conservation colleagues, and found that animals move less in human-influenced habitats. Her TED Talk on tapir conservation has been viewed over 1,400,000 times.
Sanjay Gubbi is a conservation biologist based in Karnataka, India. His work focuses on the conservation of large carnivores like tigers and leopards, working on applied aspects and understanding their population biology, proposing conservation policies for their protection, and working to minimize human-wildlife conflict. He currently works as a scientist with Nature Conservation Foundation, a Mysore based NGO.
Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala is an Indian scientist and conservationist who recently ended his tenure as the Dean at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun.
Alexandra Zimmermann is a conservation scientist specialising in conflict resolution in wildlife conservation based in Oxford, England, United Kingdom. She is known for founding the IUCN Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force and is also a researcher at the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU). She is also a Senior Advisor for the World Bank's Global Wildlife Program. She has published over 50 research papers.
Miriam Supuma is a conservationist in Papua New Guinea (PNG). She was the co-founder and co-director of the PNG Institute of Biological Research (PNGIBR), a scientific research NGO. Her field research has centred around Birds of Paradise, particularly in relation to the use of their feathers for traditional adornment by people in the highlands of PNG.
Walkey is a surname.
Eleanor Sterling was an conservationist and biologist. She was the director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History and also became the director of Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa (UHM).