School of Earth and Environment
Untitled Document

Nisha Owen

Postgraduate Student

Telephone number: +44(0) 113 34 32878
Email address: bgy3no@leeds.ac.uk
Room: Miall 9.20a

Biography

Project Details

Project Title: Conservation, conflict and costs: large mammals in the Western Ghats

Supervisors: Dr Sankaran (Biol), Dr Termansen, Dr Biesmeijer (Biol), Dr M.D.Madhusudan (Nature Conservation Foundation)

Start date: 1st October 2008

Project description:

This interdisciplinary project is jointly supervised by the Institute for Integrative and Comparative Biology and the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, and in collaboration with the Nature Conservation Foundation, India.

The aims of this project are:

  • To understand, characterise and evaluate the dynamics of human-wildlife conflict at a site-specific and landscape level, within the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in the Western Ghats, India.
  • To produce novel ecological economic modeling tools to help conservation practitioners understand conflict situations, allowing the effectiveness of conservation policy initiatives to be tested and refined before putting them into practice.

To achieve this, the main project objectives are to assess levels of conflict between stakeholders over wildlife, specifically large endangered mammals, and to determine the significant factors influencing conflict. Mapping conflict data at a landscape scale using GIS will also help to predict key conflict sites across both space and time. Uniquely, these analyses of conflict will link the individual and interactive effects of ecological, socio-economic and policy determinants of human wildlife conflict. Incorporating social and economic aspects of conflict is vital to reconcile conservation with the needs of local communities that share the landscape.

Modeling can also enable better targeting of limited conservation funds towards appropriate management strategies, with significant implications for conservation management and policy. These modeling tools could subsequently be utilised to guide the mitigation of wildlife conflicts in any site where mammal populations are vulnerable. The models are intended to be transferable across ecosystems and between species, but will be designed and tested using data from a global biodiversity hotspot: the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR) in the Western Ghats, Southern India.

Funding:

NERC/ESRC, with supplemental funding from the Panthera Foundation, UK-India Research and Education Initiative, National Centre for Biological Sciences (Bangalore), UKRC.

Curriculum Vitae:

2011: Placement in Scottish Parliament, in the Health, Environment and Europe Research Unit for 3 months.

2004 - 2008: Society for Environmental Exploration

  • Research & Development Manager (UK): Management of seven overseas field research programmes in five countries. Achieved a Darwin Award (DEFRA) of £128,000 for 'Conserving the Ruipa Corridor'.
  • Principal Investigator (Tanzania): 'Biodiversity Research & Awareness in the lesser-known Eastern Arc Mountains'. $236,000 project funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.

2004: Wildlife Conservation Society, Bolivia; Species diversity, population densities & habitat preferences of large mammals & birds in Madidi National Park, Bolivia.

2003 - 2004: MSc Biodiversity & Conservation with Distinction, University of Leeds.

2002: Research assistant at the Cochrane Ecological Institute, Alberta, Canada

2001: Research assistant at ARCAS, Guatemala

2000: Research assistant at Operation Wallacea, Indonesia

1998 - 2001: BSc (Hons) Zoology, University of Sheffield

Publications:

Owen, N. (in press). Joining nature with society: ecological and green networks. Scottish Parliament Information Centre, Edinburgh.

Cook, G., Owen, N., Reid, A. 2011. Environment Subject Profile. SB11/41 Scottish Parliament Information Centre, Edinburgh.

Bonnington C., Steer M.D, Lamontagne-Godwin J., Owen N., Grainger M. 2010. The globally important puku antelope (Kobus vardoni Livingstone, 1857) population of the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania: Evidence for local declines between 1999 and 2003. African Journal of Ecology 48(4): 1139-1142.

Menegon M., Doggart N., Owen N. 2008. The Nguru Mountains of Tanzania, an outstanding hotspot of herpetofaunal diversity. Acta Herpetologica: 3, 107-127.

Ahrends A., Rahbek C., Bulling M.T., Burgess N.D., Platts P.J., Lovett J.C., Kindemba V.W., Owen N., Sallu A.N., Marshall A.R., Mhoro B.E., Fanning E. and Marchant R. (in press). Conservation and the botanist effect. Biological Conservation.

Ahrends A., Burgess N.D., Gereau R.E., Marchant R., Bulling M.T., Lovett J.C., Platts P.J., Kindemba V.W., Owen N., Fanning E. and Rahbek C. (accepted). Funding begets biodiversity. Diversity and distributions.

Menegon M., Bracebridge C., Owen N., Loader S. (in press). Amphibians and reptiles of Mahenge Mountains, with comments on their biogeographical distributions, diversity, and conservation. Fieldiana.

Journal reviewer, African Journal of Ecology, 2010 & 2011.

Technical Reports:

Owen N., et al. (eds.) 2008. Biodiversity Research and Awareness in the lesser-known Eastern Arc Mountains (BREAM) Volumes 1- IV. SEE & UDSM; CEPF.

Frontier-Cambodia. 2008. Priestland E, Owen N, et al. (eds). A Rapid Assessment of the Role of Flooded Forests, and the Impact of Their Loss On Local Communities and Fish Populations. Report for CI.

Frontier-Cambodia Environmental Research Series. SEE, UK & DNCP, MoE, Royal Government of Cambodia.

Teaching:

2008-2010. Demonstrator on a variety of Biology undergraduate and MSc modules, including Animal Behaviour, Physiology, Conservation Genetics, and MSc Biological Skills.

2007. Participatory Eco-Tourism. Guest lecturer on several UK MSc courses in Conservation.

2005. Tropical Field Methods. Guest lecturer at RGS Student Conference.

General Research Interests:

Biodiversity and conservation planning, reconciling conservation with sustainable development, human-wildlife conflicts, large mammal ecology and conservation;