Sofiya Shukhova
Conservationist and wildlife artist, self-employed
- Member directory
- Russian Federation
My background is mainly in species conservation, education and capacity exchange. I researched mother-young interactions in gorillas and chimpanzees, in captivity and the wild. After that, I worked for three years in Indonesia, where I developed and implemented youth ambassador and community engagement programmes on local and regional scales. I co-founded WildHub, a community of nature conservation professionals, in 2020 and work as their Community Lead. I am furthermore on the Advisory Board of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent where I obtained my PhD on capacity development for conservation in 2022.
I was a police officer in the UK for 25 years. I then retrained as an International Mountain Leader and have guided all over the world. In 2011, I won the Bronze in the Wanderlust Magazine World Guide Awards.
I stumbled into conservation work, firstly in Borneo, and this opened my eyes to our need to change the way we do things. During the covid confinements when I could no longer work as a guide, I took to writing, and published a novel, Stonechild, where the famous London statues come to life with their important message on conservation. I also trained as a Climate Reality Leader.
I have a background in Social Anthropology and recently graduated from DICE with an MSc in Conservation and Rural Development. I carried out fieldwork in Uganda for my dissertation focusing on the impacts of tourism and conservation on residents working in community-led enterprises that live around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Prior to that I interned at Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) a grassroots NGO focused on improving community well-being and mountain gorilla conservation using a one health approach. . I believe that securing and supporting the rights of indigenous and local people are crucial and I am passionate about environmental and social justice and interested in the political ecology of conservation, convivial conservation and bio-cultural approaches to conservation.
Dr Janine Robinson
International Implementation at JNCC and Associate at DICE, Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)
Zoë Lieb is the project coordinator on the Field Engagement team for the Allen Coral Atlas. Coming from a conservation biology background, she was the in-country manager and primary investigator for the Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project for two years, working towards culturally oriented solutions to human-wildlife conflict issues among nomadic herding communities. She has also worked as a marine observer collecting management data for Alaskan crab fisheries and other data collection positions. She received her MSc in Conservation Biology from University of Kent in the United Kingdom in 2019. Her expertise includes program development, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and community-supported conservation strategies.
Dice alumni, Conservation Biology MSc.
Former nature guide & ranger in South Africa - Head of black Rhino monitoring.
Wild food forager & educator.
I am a passionate wildlife photographer and use this medium to tell natures stories surrounding myself and wherever I happen to be working. Particularly interested in forest & marine conservation but have worked in species specific conservation with Elephant, Lion & Rhino.
Currently working in Cambodia with Jahoo, an indigenous community led Gibbon eco-tourism conservation program
I have recently graduated from DICE with an MSc in Conservation Biology. I have a particular interest in the conservation of herpetofauna and carried out research in the UK on slow-worm use of refugia for my MSc dissertation and I also worked in Jersey looking at agile frog habitat suitability. I have a background in local government technology and project management and currently work in this field.
