Claire Louise Vincent

PhD Student in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology

About myself

I am originally from Canada where I studied for a BSc in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of British Colombia (UBC). After my undergrad I spent some time working in the field in Costa Rica and with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Cambodia. I then went on to an MSc in Behaviour Evolution and Conservation from University of Lausanne (UNIL) in Switzerland. My thesis focused on conservation prioritisation using decision support tools, GIS, and species distribution modelling. After my MSc I took another break from academia and spent a few years working with a focus on protected areas with the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone and then with UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). These projects aligned with my research interests and aimed at building data and GIS capacity, and monitoring and managing protected areas.

About the PhD

My PhD will assess the impact of achieving targets from the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on mammal extinction risk. I will be focusing my research on the protected areas target to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030, and the restoration target to restore 20% of the worlds degraded lands. The research will quantify the expected effect of these policies in terms of expected reduction in extinction risk of terrestrial mammals. I will compare projections based on the current conservation policies with projections that account for the new 2030 targets using the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric. Results will be presented in terms of mitigation of extinction risk potentially achievable by these CBD 2030 targets for individual species, regionally and globally. The research will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Carlo Rondinini at the Global Mammal Assessment Lab.