I am a social scientist and passionate about increasing the application of social science research and methods in the conservation sector. To do this, I founded Human Nature. Human Nature is a social enterprise empowering conservation professionals to use social sciences to impact people and planet. We provide training and mentorship to NGOs, academics, policy makers and others wishing to build their foundations in social science. Many people working in conservation have trained through natural science routes, and find themselves needing to better understand the people elements of ecosystems. Social science provides the tools do this. Please get in touch if you are interested in hearing more about what we do.  You can contact me at https://humannature.co.uk/contact.

Hi all! I am currently Fauna & Flora Internationals (FFIs) Senior Programme Manager for Conservation Capacity and Leadership. I have a lovely broad remit, but at its heart my job is to support FFI staff and partners strengthen skills in establishing, managing and supporting FFIs conservation work. I do this in lots of ways- designing and running training events, supporting the application of new skills/learning to peoples work, setting up mentoring relationships and peer to peer learning groups, organising exchange visits, work shadowing, master classes etc. We have a big focus on knowledge management in FFI, so don't just focus on how to bring in new knowledge and learning into our organisation, but how to share and apply all the incredible knowledge and skills our 400 strong team already have I have an MSc in Environmental Technology and PhD in Anthropology from UCL where I specialised in human-environment interactions, with a stint as a Teaching Fellow in Human Ecology (maternity cover). Prior to joining FFI, I spent a number of years working in the Central African Republic to assess and improve the integration of conservation and development in the Dzanga-Sangha region, and following gorillas up and down volcanoes in Rwanda with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. Before joining FFI's Conservation Capacity team in 2013, I spent 5 years in FFI’s Africa team, co-ordinating and managing projects in Liberia, West Africa.

I work with Indigenous communities in all the practical and strategic processes that support their territorial autonomy and self-determined developmental agendas. In a beautifully complex world, that can mean anything from technical GIS support, monitoring biodiversity in territory, analyzing invasions and threats to territory, strategizing and obtaining the necessary data to fill gaps to support legal cases against threats and support informed decision-making. I am an interdisciplinary academic-activist working with Indigenous nationalities and representative organisations in pursuit and actualization of their autonomy and collectively self-determined vision. I have worked on the intersection between international law, national judicial systems, international environmental commitments, extractive industries and the plural visions of Indigenous Peoples and other historically minoritized groups. My focus has been on human rights-based approaches to conservation and what they imply in current law, traditional/local ecological knowledge, and Indigenous leadership in navigating an encroaching world (community-based monitoring and mapping of territory (for biodiversity, threats, culture, etc.)). I have worked across South America and both South and Southeast Asia and have now returned to the Amazonian region as the monitoring field coordinator for Amazon Frontlines. For my work things feel free to skim my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/tomatitoperdido