Conservation governance
at the Lancaster Environment Centre
Reserach
Members
Maribel Rodriguez
Affiliated Researcher
My research is focused on a comparative analysis of the legal-regulatory measures to ensure deterrent penalties for wildlife trade related crimes. It will also analyse alternative legal pathways to tackle illegal wildlife trade, such as the application of environmental liability, money-laundering or organised crimes penalties. As a lawyer, I firmly believe that knowing and using the law is one necessary way of addressing wildlife trade issues. But also, to identify legal gaps and improve those laws, it is necessary to understand what the conservation challenges are. To be able to reach this point, my research will aim at closing this gap among the two worlds, and find a common language between lawyers and conservation specialists. I hold a Law Degree from the University of Sevilla (Spain), and MSc degree in CITES (UNIA) and two LLMs on Environmental and Business Law (KUL and Radboud Nijmegen University). The implementation and enforcement of environmental laws has been at the core of my professional career which has taken me from academia (Academy of European Law) to NGOs (ClientEarth) to international organizations (Secretariat of the Bern Convention).
Miaomiao Tian
Ph.D. Resaercher
I am a Ph.D. student at Lancaster University, co-supervised by Jacob Phelps and Gary Potter (Law School). I hold an LLM degree at the University of Bristol and obtained an LLB degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University in China. My research focuses on the evolution of wildlife governance in China--including tracking the evolution of regulatory frameworks and court case analsyes. It is partiuclarly interested in current developments: From SARS to Ebola to Covid-19, zoonotic diseases have been connected closely with wildlife trade. After the outbreak of Covid-19 coronavirus, China banned the trade of bushmeat in all terrestrial wild animals. My study explores how China’s wildlife trade governance has evolved over time, and follows its contemporary re-shaping as conservation policy becomes increasingly influenced by public health policy. Based on that, my research interests concentrate on the amended legislation’s influence on wildlife trade, including for food, medice fur and pets.
Kumar Paudel
Affiliated Researcher
I am Co-Founder and Director of Greenhood Nepal. I hold an MSc. in Environmental Management from Pokhara University, and wrote my dissertation on ‘Assessing illegal wildlife trade in Araniko-trail, Nepal’. My research interests lie primarily in law enforcement, the drivers of illegal wildlife trade, community-based conservation, and conservation strategy and policy, and my current research works to understand participants' motivations for engaging in illegal wildlife trade in Nepal. I am active in Nepal's conservation community, working to curb illegal wildlife trade, scale-up pangolin conservation efforts and strengthen conservation awareness and capacity in Nepal. With Jacob Phelps , I coordinate the Nepal Conservaiton Research Fellowship. In addition to research papers, I frequently write on conservation issues in Nepal’s reputed newspapers. I co-founded and led the National Youth Alliance for Rhino Conservation (NYARC), which has succeeded in raising stakeholder concern about rhino conservation and is celebrating a "zero poaching year". I also co-founded Greenhood Nepal, which works to strengthen public awareness and engagement with endangered species conservation.
Rika Fajrini
Affiliated Rearcher
I am an PhD researcher at Kyoto University, actively collaborating with Conservation-Litigation.org. Until recently, I worked for the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) in its Land and Forest Governance Department. I hold a law degree from University of Indonesia, and finished my Masters in environmental policy at GSGES Kyoto University. I am interested in studying the role of science in legal decision making and restoration-oriented law enforcement. My studies include research on how scientific evidence is used in court, and how damage and compensation are shaped in land and forest fire legal cases; how Environmental Impact Assessments, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and spatial planning as scientific documents are used in environmental decision making and in court trials. I am keen to explore how lawyers, as non-scientist, should approach science in their legal reasoning.