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Ian Swingland | |
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Born | Ian Richard Swingland 2 November 1946 Barnet, England, United Kingdom |
Occupation(s) | Biodiversity; academia, business and charities |
Years active | 1968–present |
Criminal charges | Conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation |
Ian Richard Swingland (born 2 November 1946) is a British conservationist, convicted in 2017 of conspiring to commit fraud by false representation. [1] He founded DICE (Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology) 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.
Swingland is the only child of Flora Mary (née Fernie), who was recruited by Special Operations Executive before working as a senior lecturer in the Polytechnic of Central London, and Hugh Maurice Webb Swingland, an electrical engineer who rose to the rank of Director, MoD Procurement Executive after serving in the Royal Navy North Sea minesweepers during World War II. Swingland was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, London, followed by London, Edinburgh and Oxford Universities. At London University, he read zoology and social anthropology and published his first scientific paper on the location of memory in a vertebrate in Nature in 1969 while an undergraduate. After working for Shell Research International for a short time, he took a PhD in ecology in the Forestry and Natural Resources Department at Edinburgh University on a Department for International Development Scholarship and subsequently worked as a research and management biologist in the Kafue National Park, Zambia for the Government.
In 1974, Swingland joined Oxford University Zoology Department for five years to work on the giant tortoises of Aldabra Atoll, western Indian Ocean. He has been, or is, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, University of Florence, University of Auckland, Manchester Metropolitan University and Beijing Forestry University and has worked as a research mathematician for Royal Dutch Shell at Sittingbourne, in Kent, England. In 1979 he was appointed to the University of Kent to create their Natural Science Continuing Education programme and ten years later founded DICE, The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, a multi-disciplinary research and conservation training institute. The name was chosen in recognition of Swingland's friend, Gerald Durrell, and his commitment to conservation. Swingland retired from the university in 1999 but serves as professor emeritus.
Swingland founded the Herpetological Conservation Trust in 1989 (renamed the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust), [2] an international NGO and the international journal Biodiversity and Conservation in 1992, the first multidisciplinary journal in biodiversity management and sustainable development. [3] He also co-founded a number of companies which apply business and market approaches to benefiting conservation, biodiversity and people on an integrated, sustainable and ethical basis [4] and co-founded, with Neil Wates and Sir Colin Spedding, the think-tank RURAL (Responsible Use of Resources in Agriculture and on the Land) in 1980.[ citation needed ] One of these companies, Sustainable Forestry Management Limited, was incorporated in Bermuda in October 1999 and liquidated in 2011. [5]
Swingland was a draftsman of part of the Convention on Biological Diversity concerning fair and equitable sharing of benefits (PrepComm UNEP Nairobi 1990) and was asked by Sir Peter Scott to create the IUCN/SSC (International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission) Tortoise Specialist Group in 1981 which is now the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. He directed the First World Congress of Herpetology 1989. He is also a co-founder and former chair of the Rural Regeneration Unit, a social enterprise dedicated to self-help projects and a substantial food co-operative, and the Durrell Trust for Conservation Biology, the trust that was dedicated to supporting DICE. He has served on the RSPCA Council 1990–1995 and as chair of its Wildlife Committee 1985–1990, as well as delivering their 150th Anniversary Lecture. Since 1985 he has served at various times on the Council of Fauna & Flora International and has been the longest standing board member to the Darwin Initiative, which funds multi-sectoral international projects in biodiversity management for the UK government. He was chair of the Apple and Pear Research Council from 1997, now part of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board since 2003, and is a benefactor of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and was an Ambassador to Galapagos Conservation Trust until 2019. He supported the founding of Great Oaks Small School, Sandwich which specialises in those who have difficulty in benefiting from conventional mainstream education.[ citation needed ]
Swingland was invited (2010, 2012) by the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning and Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet to evaluate their biodiversity and Linnaeus research programmes throughout the country.[ citation needed ]
Swingland has been an advisor on conservation and biodiversity management to the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, the Asian Development Bank, and the UK Government, [6] [7] [8] and has been employed as a research and management biologist in the Kafue National Park, Zambia, helping to write the management plan; and the Sundarban Biodiversity Conservation Project in Bangladesh. [9] Swingland has been heavily involved with the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development, the largest biodiversity project [10] belonging to the Commonwealth and was appointed Chairman of the International Board of Trustees (2002) by the president of Guyana and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Secretariat under the patronage of the Prince of Wales.[ citation needed ] He also advised China on integrated ecosystem management projects; [11] its aim was to reduce land degradation, create alternative livelihoods, and conserve biodiversity using a market, not donation, approach. He led the Indian Ocean and Galapagos part of Operation Drake, and was a member of a UK scientific expedition, the Royal Geographical Society expedition to the rainforest of Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak.
Swingland is director emeritus and former trustee of Earthwatch 1999–2009, and is a founding trustee, former chair and now Trust Patron of Operation Wallacea since 2010. The trust funds projects which seek to empower communities and individuals to develop successful commercially viable enterprises linked to the protection of biodiversity.
Swingland was made an honorary Doctor of Sciences by the University of Kent for his service to biodiversity conservation. [12] He was awarded the Freedom of London in 2001 and made an Honorary Bioscience Fellow, Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International, 2002.[ citation needed ] He was a Fellow of the Zoological Society (FZS) 1974 and a member of the Athenaeum Club, London 2004.
Swingland was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours for services to conservation. [13] The appointment was cancelled and annulled in November 2017. [14] [15]
Ian Swingland was involved with Carbon Research and Development Limited, a now defunct company incorporated in Mauritius on 21 March 2005, and stood trial (with others) on charges involving the facilitation of tax evasion between 2005 and 2008. [16] [17] At the end of the trial, which commenced on 20 September 2016 and lasted four months, he was acquitted on the principal charge. [18] He was found guilty on 3 March 2017 of one count of conspiring to commit fraud by false representation, receiving a two-year sentence, suspended for 18 months at Southwark Crown Court on 10 March 2017. [19]
Reporting restrictions relating to the various trials brought under the "Operation Amazon" investigation were maintained until 25 February 2019. [20] On 30 September 2017, while remaining a benefactor, Swingland resigned as a director of The Wallacea Trust. On 30 November his name was erased from the register of members of the Order of the British Empire.
Swingland also has some fifty papers published in books and journals such as Nature , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , Journal of Theoretical Biology , Journal of Zoology (London), Journal of Animal Ecology , Animal Behaviour , and Proceedings of the Royal Society .
Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands (forestation) that have been depleted, usually through deforestation but also after clearcutting.
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.
Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource management.
Wildlife management is the management process influencing interactions among and between wildlife, its habitats and people to achieve predefined impacts. It attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include wildlife conservation, gamekeeping and pest control. Wildlife management draws on disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology and geography to gain the best results.
The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) is a subdivision and research centre of the School of Anthropology and Conservation at 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, being six Professors, seven Readers and nine Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, as well as an advisory board consisting of 14 conservationists from government, business and the NGO sector.
Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable forest management has to keep the balance between three main pillars: ecological, economic and socio-cultural. Sustainable forestry can seem contradicting to some individuals as the act of logging trees is not sustainable. However, the goal of sustainable forestry is to allow for a balance to be found between ethical forestry and maintaining biodiversity through the means of maintaining natural patterns of disturbance and regeneration. The forestry industry mitigates climate change by boosting carbon storage in growing trees and soils and improving the sustainable supply of renewable raw materials via sustainable forest management. Successfully achieving sustainable forest management will provide integrated benefits to all, ranging from safeguarding local livelihoods to protecting biodiversity and ecosystems provided by forests, reducing rural poverty and mitigating some of the effects of climate change. Forest conservation is essential to stop climate change.
Landscape-scale conservation is a holistic approach to landscape management, aiming to reconcile the competing objectives of nature conservation and economic activities across a given landscape. Landscape-scale conservation may sometimes be attempted because of climate change. It can be seen as an alternative to site based conservation.
Natural resource management (NRM) is the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations (stewardship).
The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, includes all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth.
Ecology Project International is a non-profit organization based in Missoula, Montana, dedicated to developing place-based, ecological education partnerships between local experts and youth to address conservation issues. Ecology Project International (EPI) works with students and educators at seven program sites around the world: Belize, Costa Rica, mainland Ecuador, Galápagos Islands, Hawaii, Mexico, and Yellowstone.
The angonoka tortoise is a critically endangered species of tortoise severely threatened by poaching for the illegal pet trade. It is endemic to Madagascar. It is also known as the angonoka, ploughshare tortoise, Madagascar tortoise, or Madagascar angulated tortoise. There may be fewer than 400 of these tortoises left in the wild. It is found only in the dry forests of the Baly Bay area of northwestern Madagascar, near the town of Soalala. A captive-breeding facility was established in 1986 by the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust in collaboration with the Water and Forests Department. In 1996, 75 tortoises were stolen, which later appeared for sale in the Netherlands. The project was ultimately successful, achieving 224 captive-bred juveniles out of 17 adults in 2004. Project Angonoka developed conservation plans that involved local communities making firebreaks, along with the creation of a park to protect the tortoise and the forests. Monitoring of the angonoka tortoise in the global pet trade has also continued to be advocated.
The Turtle Conservancy (TC) is a conservation organization which helps to protect threatened turtles, tortoises and their habitats, worldwide. Its primary aim is to protect wild and endangered turtle and tortoise populations.
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Distinguished Professor David Lindenmayer,, is an Australian scientist and academic. His research focuses on the adoption of nature conservation practices in agricultural production areas, developing ways to improve integration of native forest harvesting and biodiversity conservation, new approaches to enhance biodiversity conservation in plantations, and improved fire management practices in Australia. He specialises in large-scale, long-term research monitoring programs in south-eastern Australia, primarily in forests, reserves, national parks, plantations, and on farm land.
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