Much of my work focuses on designing conservation landscapes and protected area networks, especially as part of long-term projects in southeast Africa and the English Channel, and this research covers a wide range of topics from software development to guiding policy and implementation. I have worked on projects in 14 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe and this has given me a broad interest in the factors that affect conservation policy and practice. In particular, I have published work on the impacts of corruption, measuring project effectiveness, human-wildlife conflict, the role of positive incentives and how marketing influences the conservation agenda.

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Selected Publications

Veríssimo, D, MacMillan, DC and Smith, RJ (2011). Towards a systematic approach for identifying conservation flagships. Conservation Letters, 4, 1-8.

Leader-Williams, N, Adams, WM and Smith, RJ (2010) Trade-offs in conservation: deciding what to save. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.

Smith, RJ, Veríssimo, D, Leader-Williams, N, Cowling, RM, Knight, AT (2009). Let the locals lead. Nature, 462, 280-281.

Smith, RJ, Easton, J, Nhancale, BA, Armstrong, AJ, Culverwell, J, Dlamini, S, Goodman, PS, Loffler, L, Matthews, WS, Monadjem, A, Mulqueeny, CM, Ngwenya, P, Ntumi, CP, Soto, B and Leader-Williams, N (2008). Designing a transfrontier conservation landscape for the Maputaland centre of endemism using biodiversity, economic and threat data. Biological Conservation, 141, 2127-2138.

Smith, RJ, Muir, RDJ, Walpole, MJ, Balmford, A & Leader-Williams, N (2003). Governance and the loss of biodiversity. Nature, 426, 67-70.

 

 

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Protected area network design

The majority of my time is spent working on projects to help design protected area (PA) networks based on the systematic conservation planning approach. My two main projects focus on the English Channel and working with the Government of Mozambique to produce planning systems for the Lubombo, Greater Limpopo and Chimanimani Transfrontier Conservation Areas. The project in Mozambique follows on from my previous work helping design a transnational conservation planning system for the Maputaland centre of endemism, which falls within Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland.

Systematic conservation planning software

One aspect of the Maputaland project described above involved developing CLUZ, a user-friendly ArcView interface for the Marxan conservation planning software. CLUZ contains a number of features that allow the user to create, import and modify Marxan data and is widely used in the conservation planning community. I am continually developing CLUZ to ensure that it remains useful and relevant and I am also working together with the developers of Marxan to identify new features that could be included in their software.

Marketing and conservation

As part of my research on the role of biodiversity hotspots and Key Biodiversity Areas, I have developed an interest in the role of marketing in driving conservation policy and practice. I am currently collaborating on several projects that investigate these issues, focusing on flagship species, priority region schemes and the way that conservation is portrayed in the media.

Other interests

I have also published work on the role of positive incentives in conservation, the impact of corruption on conservation success, human-wildlife conflict and predicting deforestation patterns. I continue to have an interest in these topics, especially when they have a spatial element that can be analysed using geographic information systems.

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PhD Students

Nicola Abram, DICE. Designing a conservation corridor in an oil palm dominated landscape in Sabah, Borneo (co-supervisor).

Juliette Delavenne, University of Lille and DICE. Applying the systematic conservation planning of the Eastern English Channel : What conservation objectives? (co-supervisor)

Winnie Kiiru, DICE. Human-elephant conflict in Amboseli, Kenya (co-supervisor)

Kristian Metcalfe, DICE. Investigating the biological and socio-economic impacts of potential marine protected area networks in the Eastern English Channel (co-supervisor).

Enrico Di Minin, DICE. Conservation planning and megafaunal reintroductions in Maputaland (co-supervisor).

Constanza Monterrubio - Community Conserved Areas vs. Private Protected Areas in Mexico (co-supervisor).

Bruno Nhancale, DICE. Strengthening and mainstreaming the Maputaland systematic conservation planning system (co-supervisor).

Diogo Veríssimo, DICE. Maximizing awareness and fundraising for conservation through the flagship concept (co-supervisor).

Charlotte Walters, DICE and Institute of Zoology. Present and future conservation of European bats (co-supervisor).

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Honorary Senior Fellow, United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre

International Editorial Board of Oryx, the International Journal of Conservation

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