Joshua Powell | |
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![]() Powell in Kyrgyzstan | |
Born | 16 July 1993 32) Eastbourne, East Sussex, England | (age
Alma mater |
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Awards | CF |
Joshua John Powell CF (born 16 July 1993) is a British conservation biologist. [1] [2] He is one of the faces of WWF's #WWFVoices campaign on global biodiversity. [3]
Powell attended Cranbrook School, Kent. [4] Powell subsequently attended the University of Nottingham and graduated with a first-class Honours Bachelor of Science degree in geography in 2014, [5] before receiving a Thouron Award to complete his master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania. [6] [7]
Powell received a UK Churchill Fellowship in 2017 to study island conservation strategy in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, [8] [9] followed by South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. [10] In 2021, Powell produced and featured in Saving Britain's Islands, a short educational film on island conservation, funded by the British Ecological Society. [11] The film featured conservation projects in New Zealand and South Georgia. [12]
Powell then received a grant from the National Geographic Society to establish Rangers Without Borders, a conservation research program he subsequently founded with Peter Coals, a friend from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at the University of Oxford, [13] [14] with Powell becoming a National Geographic Explorer. [15]
Powell is one of the faces of WWF's #WWFVoices campaign on global biodiversity, [16] for which he has hosted series on polar science and Arctic conservation in Svalbard and Arctic Russia, [17] island and marine conservation in the North Atlantic [18] and biodiversity in South Georgia. Powell featured in promotional videos for Earth Hour in 2019 and 2021, appearing alongside other youth advocates and Australian actress, Margot Robbie. [19] [20]
In 2020, Powell became an advisor for The Queen's Commonwealth Trust, [21] a charity that funds, champions and assists the projects of youth advocates throughout the Commonwealth. [22]
Powell received a UK Churchill Fellowship in 2017, [23] [24] receiving the honorific CF in 2019.
In 2019, Powell was awarded the Scientific Exploration Society's Explorer Award for Inspiration & Scientific Trail-blazing. [25] In 2021, Powell was named one of the Explorers Club 50: Fifty people changing the world. [26]