Conservation Science - Staff - Robin Naidoo

Conservation Scientist

Areas of Expertise: Environmental economics, ecosystem services, landscape ecology, wildlife ecology

Robin Naidoo
© WWF

Robin Naidoo is a research scientist with the Conservation Science Program, WWF-US. After graduating with a PhD in conservation biology and environmental economics from the University of Alberta, he conducted post-doctoral research in Paraguay, where he investigated the economic costs and benefits of Atlantic rainforest conservation while acting as the director of research for a local non-governmental organization. Subsequently he began working for WWF-US, where he has spent the last 6 years investigating questions surrounding the conservation of biodiversity, mainly in developing countries.

Naidoo's work has mostly focused on quantifying, at various scales and contexts, the economic costs and benefits of conservation and how these relate to the distribution of biodiversity. His work on the benefits side (i.e., the ecosystem services that nature provides to society) has led to collaborations with researchers from the Natural Capital Project (www.naturalcapitalproject.org) and the Valuing the Arc project(www.valuingthearc.org),initiatives that seek to map the value of natural habitats and compare these values to those from alternative land uses. More recently, Naidoo has begun to work with Namibia's highly successful Community-Based Natural Resource Program, assessing the linkages between biodiversity and communal financial benefits, as well as mapping the wildlife services that are at the core of the program's focus on livelihoods and conservation.

Naidoo serves on the editorial board of Conservation Letters and holds adjunct professorships at both the University of Alberta (Department of Rural Economy) and the University of British Columbia (Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability). His work has been published in a variety of journals including those devoted to economics, ecology, conservation, and interdisciplinary issues.  For a list of publications and current research interests, see http://www.conciseresearch.net/?q=node/16.

Email: robin.naidoo@wwfus.org