Executive Director of S.P.E.C.I.E.S. and founder of the Chaco Jaguar Conservation Project (CJCP), Dr. Anthony J. Giordano will discuss his model for human-wildlife coexistence, in part born from his pioneering doctoral work as a Fulbright Scholar in Paraguay.
Anthony will describe the challenges that jaguars face today, which are in part a microcosm of the threats facing many of the world’s predators - threats that his organization is tackling. He will discuss the key milestones the CJCP has achieved over the past 18 years, including what obstacles they had to overcome, how they build trust with local ranchers, and what it is like working at the southern edge of the jaguar’s range. He’ll also discuss why it’s important to sometimes unlearn what we think we already know about conservation, to discover new pathways to success.
A fellow of the prestigious Explorers Club and recipient of the Society for Conservation Biology’s career distinguished service award, Anthony is also a founding member of the Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence at Colorado State University, and an invited member to the University’s Center for Collaborative Conservation. He’s had the privilege of leading the development and/or management of conservation programs and research projects on the ground in more than 50 countries, particularly across Latin America, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Among his research interests include the relationships between predator and prey, the ecology of vertebrate population demographics and dynamics in space and time, and the development of novel socio-ecological frameworks and metrics that can be used to incentivize biodiversity stewardship, and start ending the planet’s extinction crisis.