UICN - Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza

Leading a preemptive strike

28 October 2010 | News story

Many of us have seen heart-wrenching images of starving polar bears clinging to rapidly-melting ice sheets but how many of us realize that this iconic species is just one of thousands of animals and plants for which climate change could sound the death knell? One of the people alerting decision makers to the situation and spurring action to reverse it is Wendy Foden of IUCN’s Species Programme.

Based in Cambridge, UK, far from her native South Africa, Wendy has the job of coordinating the work of scientists who are devising a system to determine which species are most vulnerable to climate change and why. This knowledge is critical to set in train effective conservation policy and action. Creating connected networks of protected areas for example can help species adapt and move in response to a changing climate.

Wendy is driven to get the information out as quickly as possible so that there can be no excuse for inaction. She and her colleagues hit the media spotlight last year with the release of their report, Species and Climate Change. This landmark report focused on 10 species including the beluga whale, emperor penguin, quiver tree, ringed seal, salmon and staghorn corals which all highlight the way climate change is affecting marine, terrestrial and freshwater habitats.

With climate change, Wendy explains, conservationists are having to abandon many of their existing concepts of conservation and learn to play a new role as innovators who try to minimise species extinctions and maximise the capacity of landscapes to adapt and cope with climate change.

Prior to joining IUCN, Wendy was manager of the Threatened Species Programme at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), helping to conserve local plant, butterfly, arachnid and reptile species. Her career choice and ongoing passion for conservation is driven by a love of wild and remote places.

Wendy is one of those people who make you wonder what you’ve been doing with your time. As well as having a sharp scientific intellect and an enquiring mind, she has many physical talents. She has led several expeditions including a cycling trip through Malawi and northern Mozambique and several rafting trips including on the Orange river through the Richtersveld. And her interests are not all of the species or adventuring kind, she also spent time in India teaching English to Tibetan refugees.

Wendy is extremely eloquent in describing what motivates her professionally. “I believe that species conservation forms the essential skeleton of conservation. The cuteness, cuddliness, scariness, sadness, vulnerability, beauty or ugliness of our cohabiting creatures is something we’re all able to relate to, and so species play an important role in building a firm consciousness of biodiversity conservation around the world.”