Status   E-Mail   Office location Phone Fax Postal address

Postdoctoral researcher   alfredo.romero@geo.hu-berlin.de   Rudower Chaussee 16, Room 2'231 +49 (0)30 2093-6806 +49 (0)30 2093-6848 Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany

About me

I am a Bolivian conservation biologist interested in resolving issues that affect biodiversity, especially regarding the expansion of agriculture, and human-wildlife conflicts.

As an undergrad, I studied the impact of wild mammal trade in an urban market and its impact on some commonly traded and threatened species, especially Andean armadillo and swamp deer. I later worked with WCS in the Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park in southern Bolivia, studying population ecology and behaviour of mammals, especially wild cats. I later volunteered in the WWF’s AREAS project in the Peruvian Amazon, trying to measure the spatial requirements of jaguar and puma to define conservation areas to conserve viable populations.

From 2014 to 2015 I was a lecturer at the St. Francis Xavier University in Sucre, Bolivia, my hometown. In addition to teaching in the biology BSc, I studied with my students how urbanization gradients determine bird diversity and public attitudes towards urban nature. We have also started a UNDP-funded project trying to promote the coexistence between rural communities and puma, who often predate on their livestock, in El Palmar protected area.

I have grown more and more interested in one of the most important drivers of biodiversity loss: the impact of agriculture on biodiversity. My PhD research is, therefore, an exciting opportunity for me to contribute to the understanding the issue in a region that is highly interesting for me, the American Gran Chaco.

 

Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications

Romero‐Muñoz, A., Benítez‐López, A., Zurell, D., Baumann, M., Camino, M., Decarre, J., … Kuemmerle, T. (2020): Increasing synergistic effects of habitat destruction and hunting on mammals over three decades in the Gran Chaco. Ecography, 1–13, DOI:10.1111/ecog.05053   

Romero-Muñoz, A., Morato, R.G., Tortato, F. & Kuemmerle, T. (2020): Beyond fangs: beef and soybean trade drive jaguar extinction. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 18(2), 67-68, DOI:10.1002/fee.2165
 

Romero-Muñoz, A., Jansen, M., Nuñez, A.M., Toledo, M., Vides Almonacid, R. & Kuemmerle, T. (2019): Fires scorching Bolivia’s Chiquitano Forest. Science, 366, 1082, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz7264
 

Romero-Muñoz, A., A. Fernández-Llamazares, M. Moraes, D.M. Larrea-Alcázar & C.F.R. Wordley. (2019): A pivotal year for Bolivian conservation policy. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 3, 866-869, DOI:10.0.4.14/s41559-019-0893-3

Romero-Muñoz, A., Torres, R., Noss, A.J., Giordano, A.J., Quiroga, V. , Thompson, J.J., Baumann, M., Altrichter, M., McBride Jr., T., Velilla, M., Arispe, R. ,& Kuemmerle, T. (2018): Habitat loss and overhunting synergistically drive the extirpation of jaguars from the Gran Chaco, Diversity & Distributions, DOI:10.1111/ddi.12843

Kuemmerle, T., M. Altrichter, G. Baldi, M. Cabido, M. Camino, E. Cuellar, R. L. Cuellar, J. Decarre, S. Díaz, I. Gasparri, G. Gavier-Pizarro, R. Ginzburg, A. J. Giordano, H. R. Grau, E. Jobbágy, G. Leynaud, L. Macchi, M. Mastrangelo, S. D. Matteucci, A. Noss, J. Paruelo, M. Piquer-Rodríguez, A. Romero-Muñoz, A. Semper-Pascual, J. Thompson, S. Torrella, R. Torres, J. N. Volante, A. Yanosky & M. Zak (2017): Forest conservation: Remember Gran Chaco, Science, 355, 465-466, DOI:10.1126/science.aal3020

Kehoe, L., Romero-Muñoz, A., Estes, L., Kreft, H., Polaina, E., & Kuemmerle, T. (2017): Biodiversity at risk under future cropland expansion and intensification, Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1, 1129–1135, DOI:10.1038/s41559-017-0234-3

Aguirre, LF and A Romero-Muñoz. 2015. Editorial: The last decade in mammalogy in Bolivia: a brief reflection. Mastozoología Neotropical (Journal of Neotropical Mammalogy). 22(1):5-10 (in Spanish)

Noss, AJ, B. Gardner, L Maffei, E Cuéllar, R Montaño, A Romero-Muñoz, R Sollman & AF O’Connell, 2012. Comparison of density estimation methods for mammal populations with camera traps in the Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco landscape. Animal Conservation 15:527–535, DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2012.00545.x

Cuéllar, RL, D Alarcón, F Peña, A Romero-Muñoz, L Maffei & A Noss. 2012. Kaaiyana, a jaguar with cubs in the Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park. Cat News, 5-7.

Romero-Muñoz, A, L Maffei, E Cuellar & AJ Noss. 2010. Temporal separation between jaguar and puma in the dry forest of southern Bolivia. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 26: 303-311, DOI: 10.1017/S0266467410000052

Romero-Muñoz, A & JC Pérez-Zubieta. 2008. Preliminary evaluation of the wild mammal trade in an urban market in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Mastozoología Neotropical (Journal of Neotropical Mammalogy), 15 (2): 253-259. (In Spanish)

Romero-Muñoz, A, AJ Noss, L Maffei & R Montaño. 2007. Binational population of jaguars confirmed by camera-trapping in the American Gran Chaco. Cat News, 46: 24-25

 

 

Status   E-Mail   Office location Phone Fax Postal address

Post-doctoral researcher   matthias.baumann@hu-berlin.de    Rudower Chaussee 16, Room 2'101 +49 (0)30 2093-9341 +49 (0)30 2093-6848 Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany

Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications

Current Projects

COUPLED – Operationalising telecouplings for solving sustainability challenges for land use 
COUPLED is a European research and training network, coordinated by Humboldt University Berlin and funded by the European Commission. By 2022, 15 doctoral students will be trained for a more just and sustainable world. They are supported by an experienced network of universities, companies, public institutions, and NGOs. Activities include PhD projects, various internships, and training courses.

Together we try to understand land use processes that link distant places (telecouplings) and how to govern these processes towards sustainability in an interconnected world.

COUPLED receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 765408.

More information on www.coupled-itn.eu

Publications

Schleyer, C., H. Schaich, C. Bieling, H. Gerdes, B. Ohnesorge, T. Plieninger, K. Trommler, F. Wolff (2015).  Biodiversity and ecosystems ervices in European cultural landscapes: pathways, pitfalls and perspectives. In: Biodiversity in the Green Economy, ed. by A. Gasparatos & K.J. Willis. Routledge Studies in Ecologocal Economics. London/New York: Routledge, 149-171.

Status   E-Mail		Professor Head of Conservation Biogeography Lab tobias.kuemmerle@geo.hu-berlin.de
Office location		Rudower Chaussee 16, Room 2'106
Phone		+49 (0)30 2093-9372
Fax		+49 (0)30 2093-6848
Postal address		Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Open office hour		Di 16:00 - 17:00 (or on appointment)
Co-affiliation		I am also affiliated with the IRI THESys.

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

A full list of publications is included at GoogleScholar or ResearchGate. The publication list of the Conservation Biogeography Lab is here.

Status   E-Mail   Office location Phone

Visiting Scientist   malikavs@gmail.com   Rudower Chaussee 16, Room 2'105 +49 (0)30 2093-5394

About me

I work in the Science and Policy interphase especially focussing in the agriculture-energy-environment nexus. My work in this field have involved improving sustainability standards, establishing deforestation-free supply chains, defining low-carbon pathways for urban development, enabling equitable green growth and responsible mining.

Previously, I have worked for many years on the ground on conservation and agricultural programmes in Madagascar, Congo and several Indian Ocean islands.

Lately, I have founded Sensemakers Collective, a boutique consultancy, where we work as system change facilitators for a global environmental,  social and economic transformation. Sensemakers Collective harnesses co-creation to enhance systemic strategic planning, purpose-orientation, organisational evaluation, learning, and change.

As an accredited facilitator and systems scientist, I help systemic change by integrating various state-of-the-art facilitation approaches enabling embodied, emotional, and cognitive intelligence. These different forms of intelligence can help achieve more purpose-driven decision-making and in this way support collective transformation processes.

My current or prospective projects in Science-Policy include:

• Capacity Building of the UNDP's Green Growth Commodities Community in Systems Practice
• Evaluation of UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership
• Facilitating system practices for the  UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership.
• Evaluating and coaching the Climate Alliance ‘s Change the Power Partnership
• WWF ‘s Collaboration for Forest and Agriculture – providing innovation in systems practice and understanding of stakeholders through systems science role playing games. I provided analysis and insight on issues on deforestation free supply chains.
• Facilitating Endeva ii2030, an event which brought together leading innovators from corporates, startups, the public sector, NGOs and science to co-create solutions to achieve a more inclusive society by 2030
• Achieving more sustainable trade for the Mercosur agreement.

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

Green, J.M.H, Croft, S.A, Durán, A.P, Balmford, A.P, Burgess, N.D., Fick, S., Gardner, T.A, Godar, J., Suavet, C, Virah-Sawmy, M., Young, L.E., West, C.D: Linking global drivers of agricultural trade to on-the-ground impacts on biodiversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS 116 (46), 23202-23208).

Durán, A.P., Green, J.M., West, C.D., Visconti, P., Burgess, N.D., Virah-Sawmy, M. and Balmford, A. (2018): Putting species back on the map: devising a robust method for quantifying the biodiversity impacts of land conversion. Methods in Ecology and Evolution (in press).

Guerrero, A., Biggs, D., Jones, N., Virah-Sawmy, M., Ross, H (2018): Mental models on reducing deforestation in supply chains: Insights from the soy sector. Environment Science and Policy (accepted, May 2020).

Kehoe, L., Reis, T. Virah-Sawmy, M., Kuemmerle, T (2019). Call to prioritize human rights and the environment in EU trade talks with Brazil. Science, 364, 6438.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Duran, P., Guerrero, AM, Green, J., Biggs, D., West, C. (2019): Sustainability gridlock in a global agricultural commodity chain: reframing the soy-meat food system. Sustainable Production and Consumption 18, 210-223.

Gillson, L., Biggs, H., Smit, I.P., Virah-Sawmy, M. and Rogers, K. (2018): Finding Common Ground between Adaptive Management and Evidence-Based Approaches to Biodiversity Conservation. Trends in ecology & evolution, 34, 31-44.

Pitt, R., Wyborn, C., Page, G., Hutton, J., Virah Sawmy, M., Ryan, M. and Gallagher, L. (2018): Wrestling with the complexity of evaluation for organizations at the boundary of science, policy and practice. Conservation Biology 2, 998-1006.

Joppa, L. N., O'Connor, B. C., & Visconti, P, Virah-Sawmy, M. et al. (2016): Filling in biodiversity threat gaps. Science, 352, 416-418.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Gillson, L., Gardner, C.J., Anderson, A., Clark, G. and Haberle, S. (2016). A landscape vulnerability framework for identifying integrated conservation and adaptation pathways to climate change: the case of Madagascar’s spiny forest. Landscape ecology, 31, 637-654.

Virah-Sawmy, M. (2015). Growing inclusive business models in the extractive industries: Demonstrating a smart concept to scale up positive social impacts. The Extractive Industries and Society, 2, 676-679.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Stoklosa, J. and Ebeling, J. (2015). A probabilistic scenario approach for developing improved Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) baselines. Global Ecology and Conservation, 4, 602-613.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Ebeling, J. and Taplin, R. (2014): Mining and biodiversity offsets: A transparent and science-based approach to measure “no-net-loss”. Journal of environmental management, 143, 61-70.

Gardner, CJ, Virah-Sawmy, M. et al. (2013) Protected areas for conservation and poverty alleviation: experiences from Madagascar. Journal of Applied Ecology 50, 1289-1294

Virah-Sawmy, M.et al. (2013). The Durban Vision in practice: participatory governance in Madagascar’s new protected areas. In I Scales (editor). Madagascar at Crossroads. Earthscan publication, UK

Virah-Sawmy, M. and Ebeling, J (2010). The difficult road toward real-world engagement: conservation science and mining in southern Madagascar. Conservation Letters 3, 288-289.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Willis, K.J. and Gillson, L. (2009). Does heterogeneity enhance resilience to rapid climatic changes? Sea-level rise and ecological dynamics in Madagascar’s hottest hotspot. Ecological Monograph 79, 557–574.

Virah-Sawmy, M. (2009). Ecosystem Management in Madagascar during global change. Conservation Letters 2, 163-177.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Bonsall, M. and Willis, K.J. (2009). ‘Tales of Symphonia’: extinction dynamics in response to past climate change in Madagascan rainforests. Biology Letters 5, 821-825

Virah-Sawmy, M., Willis, K.J. and Gillson, L. (2009). Evidence for drought and forest declines during the recent megafaunal extinctions in Madagascar. Journal of Biogeography 37, 506 – 519

Virah-Sawmy, M. et al. (2009). Rapid forest degradation in a Mauritian rainforest following 60 years of invasion. Oryx 43, 599–607.

Virah-Sawmy, M., Willis, K.J. and Gillson, L. (2009). Threshold Response of Madagascar’s littoral forest to sea-level rise. Global Ecology and Biogeography 18, 98-100.

Ebeling, J., Virah-Sawmy, M. and Moura Costa, P. (2009). Using international carbon markets to finance forest restoration while mitigating climate change. In F.A. Comín (editor). Ecological Restoration: A Global Challenge. Cambridge University Press-CSIC

Willis, K.J., Gillson, L and Virah-Sawmy, M., (2008). Nature or nurture: the ambiguity of grasslands in Madagascar. Journal of Biogeography 35, 1741-1742.

Google Scholar Profile

Publications

Tesfaw, AT, A Pfaff, RE Golden Kroner, S Qin, R Medeiros, and MB Mascia. 2018. Land-use and land-cover change shape the sustainability and impacts of protected areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences : 201716462.