Joshua Powell | |
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 Powell in Kyrgyzstan | |
| Born | 16 July 1993 (age 30) Eastbourne, East Sussex, England |
| 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]
The Antarctic is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole.
Nature conservation is the moral philosophy and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. A range of values underlie conservation, which can be guided by biocentrism, anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, and sentientism, environmental ideologies that inform ecocultural practices and identities. There has recently been a movement towards evidence-based conservation which calls for greater use of scientific evidence to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts. As of 2018 15% of land and 7.3% of the oceans were protected. Many environmentalists set a target of protecting 30% of land and marine territory by 2030. In 2021, 16.64% of land and 7.9% of the oceans were protected. The 2022 IPCC report on climate impacts and adaptation, underlines the need to conserve 30% to 50% of the Earth's land, freshwater and ocean areas – echoing the 30% goal of the U.N.'s Convention on Biodiversity. Ultimately, these movements should be further promoted to encourage biodiversity and to conserve a functional ecosystem.
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources is limited.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable".
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.
Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.
The Revillagigedo Islands or Revillagigedo Archipelago are a group of four volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, known for their unique ecosystem. They lie approximately 458 kilometres (285 mi) from Socorro Island south and southwest of Cabo San Lucas, the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, and 698 to 1,092 kilometres west of Manzanillo. Historically linked to the Mexican state of Colima, to which they were granted in 1861 to establish a penal colony, the islands are under Mexican federal property and jurisdiction.
A BioBlitz, also written without capitals as bioblitz, is an intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists, and volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a continuous time period. There is a public component to many BioBlitzes, with the goal of getting the public interested in biodiversity. To encourage more public participation, these BioBlitzes are often held in urban parks or nature reserves close to cities. Research into the best practices for a successful BioBlitz has found that collaboration with local natural history museums can improve public participation. As well, BioBlitzes have been shown to be a successful tool in teaching post-secondary students about biodiversity.
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.
Sir John Hartley Lawton is a British ecologist, RSPB Vice President, President of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, President of The Institution of Environmental Sciences, Chairman of York Museums Trust and President of the York Ornithological Club.
Prince Emmanuel de Merode is a conservationist and anthropologist. He has been the director of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since 2008.
The Living Planet Index (LPI) is an indicator of the state of global biological diversity, based on trends in vertebrate populations of species from around the world. The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) manages the index in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
World Wide Fund for Nature-India, better known by its abbreviation WWF-India, has been devotedly working to protect and secure natural heritage and ecology for more than 50 years. It has an autonomous office, with the Secretariat based in New Delhi and various state, divisional and project offices spread across India.
Anne Elizabeth Magurran is a British Professor of ecology at University of St Andrews in Scotland. She is the author of several books on measuring biological diversity, and the importance for quantifying biodiversity for conservation. She has won numerous awards and honors, is regularly consulted for global assessments and analyses of biodiversity and conservation and her research is often highlighted by journalists.
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.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States.
Enric Sala is a former university professor who saw himself writing the obituary of ocean life, and quit academia to become a full-time conservationist as a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Sala’s present goals are to help protect critical marine ecosystems worldwide, and to develop new business models for marine conservation. He also produces documentary films and other media to raise awareness about the importance of a healthy environment, and to inspire country leaders to protect more of the natural world.
Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and an adjunct professor in biology at the University of Bergen. In 2018 she was elected Principal of St Edmund Hall, and took up the position from 1 October. She held the Tasso Leventis Chair of Biodiversity at Oxford and was founding Director, now Associate Director, of the Biodiversity Institute Oxford. Willis was Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2013 to 2018. Her nomination by the House of Lords Appointments Commission as a crossbench life peer was announced on 17 May 2022.
William James Sutherland is the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge. He has been the president of the British Ecological Society. He has been a Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge since 2008.
Leah R. Gerber is a conservation biologist and environmental scientist most known for her contributions to the field of biodiversity conservation. She has conducted research on population ecology, conservation decision-making, and the application of innovative quantitative methods in conservation biology.