Matthew Woolf

Matt works on projects focussed in the transboundary Terai Arc Landscape between Nepal and India, acting as the UK project manager for our work under the Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP), and the Darwin Initiative Project in Western Nepal promoting coexistence between people and wildlife. The work that he supports is helping to navigate some of the challenges associated with species recovery in typically human-dominated landscapes, where there is limited space for recovering populations of large mammals, which results in human-wildlife conflict. This is particularly relevant in India and Nepal, where successful tiger conservation efforts have increased tiger populations, but this has had the unfortunate effect of bringing people into more frequent contact with tigers. It's a delicate balancing act of ensuring there is enough space and resources for both animals and people to coexist.

He is passionate about ensuring the best-available evidence and scientific understanding is integrated in approaches to saving biodiversity. Success to him is ensuring that local communities are supported and prioritised in any efforts to save the wildlife that we all love. Conservation cannot come at a cost of local people. The projects that Matt supports contribute to species recovery, while helping to reduce human-wildlife conflict in local communities within the Terai Arc Landscape.