Rebecca has been working at FFI since September 2007. Though she studied conservation in her BA and MSc, she decided that the life in the jungle just wasn't for her. Having grown up in New York City, she has experienced more pigeons and squirrels than parrots and spider monkeys. So she decided to write about the impact that FFI's projects have on the ground.
Her current role as Communications Officer (Business & Biodiversity) has allowed her to focus her energy towards FFI's innovative Business & Biodiversity Programme. Rebecca helps to get the message out about FFI's strategic corporate partnerships and what they have helped to achieve for global biodiversity.
Fauna & Flora International’s (FFI) partner, the League for the Protection of Nature (Liga Para a Protecção Da Natureza – LPN), recently held Portugal’s first seminar on the Iberian lynx, the world’s most endangered cat. LPN is one of Portugal’s leading conservation organisations and works with FFI on our joint Iberian lynx programme.
Around 200 Portuguese and Spain researchers, land managers and owners and students, as well as individuals from non-governmental organisations and the general public, debated the current state of Iberian lynx’s conservation in Portugal. The attendees discussed the management of habitat and prey (wild rabbit), a captive breeding programme and social perceptions of lynx conservation.
The seminar was vital for gathering Iberian specialists and stakeholders with influence in lynx conservation. It also gave civil society an opportunity to participate in the discussion of Iberian lynx conservation and the public’s role in the species’ survival.
FFI and LPN’s Iberian lynx programme is a lifeline for the species in Portugal. We are working to engage state and private landowners to ensure the creation of a habitat corridor to link fragmented lynx populations across the Iberian Peninsula.
The Iberian lynx is an important flagship species for stewardship of biodiversity in the Iberian Peninsula. There are around 150 left in the wild. Together FFI and LPN have secured over 10,000 hectares of prime lynx habitat.
The species is a conservation priority both in the Iberian Peninsula and globally. The workshop was particularly timely given 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity.
The seminar was held in the University of Algarve (Faro), with financial support of Banco Espírito Santo. It was organised in partnership with Fauna & Flora International, Institute for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity, National Forestry Authority, Center of Environmental Biology, Portuguese Society of Ecology and the Center for Functional Ecology.
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