Lydia Kalekye (She/Her)
Conservation educator and trainer, Africa Climate Environment Foundation
- Member directory
- Kenya
Flavia Manieri
WildHub Community Advocates Coordinator|Interdisciplinary Researcher, Uppsala University
Since July 2025, I have been serving as the Community Advocates Coordinator at WildHub, where I coordinate initiatives to engage, support, and empower our community advocates in advancing WH’s mission.
Beyond WildHub, I wear a few different hats. I work as a researcher and lecturer in Sweden, teaching courses on environmental law, political and historical ecology, and disaster risk management. I also mentor undergraduate and postgraduate students, collaborate with faculty members, and contribute to ongoing research projects.
I’m passionate about giving back through volunteer work. I support a few conservation and animal welfare organisations with research and advocacy to help drive positive change. When I’m not working, you’ll find me hiking forest trails with my dog or enjoying a good cup of coffee.
An explorer and an aspirant biodiversity conservation researcher. I seek to delve deeper into the study of the human-nature nexus and strive to foster more harmonious coexistence. I have gained brief experience in wildlife conservation at the Creative Conservation Alliance, working with Western Hoolock Gibbons and a few other wild animals. I am also working as an Associate Trainer at Mekateam, a game-based pedagogy where I provide training on basic climate literacy and biodiversity conservation to youth. Moreover, I synthesize and express my understanding of biodiversity and the natural world through my initiative, 'Toru.' Currently, I am undertaking research on Asian Elephants addressing the human-elephant conflict in Bangladesh.
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.
