Sam Shanee

Projects Director, Neotropical Primate Conservation
Marta Villasán Barroso

Biodiversity Conservation Biologist , Ecoenergías del Guadiana / Fauna&Vida NGO / SEO BirdLife

I'm from Badajoz, a little city near Portugal at Extremadura, Spain. I love my region because is plenty of wild nature, birds, forests, rivers... but is endangered too. I have a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Biodiversity Conservation. I have more than 15 years of experience in Environmental Education with school kids and the general public. I'm interested in all related topics about ecology, conservation and all living creatures and their relationships, that makes possible the life on Earth.  I have worked in Paraguay granted by University of Salamanca and UNESCO Chair "Education for Sustainable Development: Strengthening lines of research in the area of ​​biodiversity and the link with society". My duties were teaching experiments design and basic biostatistics at UNA (Universidad Nacional de Asunción); doing a biodiversity's bird research at the San Rafael National Park (the major Atlantic Forest patch remaining), ringing birds and teaching young students how to carry out a basic research; and doing environmental education with young child and population living at the natural park influence area.  I stayed at Madeira (Portugal) working on two LIFE projects, one to protect the endemic sparrowhawk "Furabardos" and the other to take care of marine birds. The LIFE projects are the UE tool to support and fund the conservation on their territories.   Later I have devoted to natural ecotourism at Extremadura (Spain) and scuba diving tourism at Sharm el Shaik (Egypt), in addition to environmental education, or little research and consultancy tasks. I have a  youtube channel  to outreach environmental issues and my own talks. Is in Spanish, but if you want you could take a look at it.  Currently, I have a job at an environmental consulting at Extremadura (Spain), working about the compensatory measures to take during and after the construction of photovoltaic plants. I take care of bird nests, mitigation and prevention of bird and bat mortality at the high voltage lines, soil restoration, reforestation, etc. I'm glad to carry out this work because I'm sure I'm doing the best to protect the nature while the construction of renewable energy plants are trying to reduce the climate change.  In addition, I take part from two NGOs: Fauna&Vida, a environmental conservation and education organization from Paraguay, where I'm currently the Education and conservation programs Director, and SEO/BirdLife, the ornithological society to protect birds, where I coordinate the volunteer group in my city. 
Brooke Aldrich

Trustee and Director, Neotropical Primate Conservation

I started working with captive rescued monkeys in 1999 and went on to earn an MSc in Primate Conservation (Oxford Brookes University) and another in International Animal Welfare Ethics and Law (University of Edinburgh). I've worked for a number of animal welfare organizations, most recently the Animals Asia Foundation and the Asia for Animals Coalition. I've been trustee and director for Neotropical Primate Conservation since its establishment as a UK charity in 2007. I'm particularly interested in the way human and non-human primates relate to one another, and the intersection between conservation and animal welfare. I feel that it's important that these are treated as complimentary, rather than contradictory, concepts. At present I am exploring primate welfare in the context of human-macaque conflict mitigation strategies. Please feel free to contact me here to talk about this if it's of interest to you! I am originally from the US but have lived in the UK for many years.