WELCOMING NEW STAFF

BirdLife South Africa is pleased to extend a warm welcome to new team members

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Regional Conservation Programme Manager

Dr Charlotte Boyd has 25 years of experience in international biodiversity conservation and marine science, with a long-standing focus on Africa and Madagascar. Her conservation career began in Mozambique in 1995, when she worked with the Department of Forestry and Wildlife to help re-establish Mozambique’s protected area network after decades of war. After a four-year stint as a research fellow with the Overseas Development Institute, focusing on community-based natural resource management in sub-Saharan Africa, she moved to Conservation International in 2001 and for seven years supported country programmes in designing strategies to conserve area-demanding threatened species at landscape scale.

After completing her PhD in marine ecology at the University of Washington in 2012, Charlotte spent a number of years as a research scientist affiliated to the US National Marine Fisheries Service, estimating the abundance, distribution and extinction risks of a wide range of marine species, including sea-birds and cetaceans.

Starting in 2017, she gradually transitioned back to conservation, with a particular focus on supporting the Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) Programme. She served as a global KBA expert at the IUCN, co-leading development of the KBA training programme and building capacity for identifying and mapping KBAs around the world. She was also an Africa Oceans Fellow at Conservation International, leading its marine work in Africa, with a particular focus on Mozambique and the Western Indian Ocean.

Delighted to join BirdLife South Africa, Charlotte will oversee the Regional Conservation Programme and work closely with the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) to support KBA identification in southern Africa and beyond.

Grasslands Conservation Project Manager: Southern Mpumalanga