Personal activities in support to biodiversity conservation
Lions2Bees
I started in June 2019 a new initiative to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity. Called lions2bees, this initiative is designed to encourage communication at municipality level by inviting researchers working on biodiversity conservation to engage directly with citizens through presentations in municipalities. Climate change and biodiversity loss are currently jeopardizing the future of humanity and many feel powerless in front of the challenges we have to face. By going from town to town, from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Varesotto in Italy, by talking about a very broad range of topics, from the conservation of lions and bees, to our individual footprint, the scope is to discuss face to face with everyone concerned about our world. Lions2Bees is also aiming at creating a global network of municipalities willing to drive these changes for the better by discussing together individual and collective initiatives which can make a difference and exchange ideas and best practices. More information can be found at http://www.lions2bees.net/
A spare time activity which I would love to scale up in another life...
Free pictures for conservation
I have the chance to travel the world in my spare time and to take pictures of the beautiful nature around us. I started to document more systematically around 5,000 pictures ( more than 1,200 species identified so far, still ongoing and many submissions to iNaturalist) and to make these available at no cost for conservation purposes. This is still ongoing work but you will find my pictures on my Flickr account https://www.flickr.com/photos/wildlifepictures/
Professional activities
I am working as a researcher at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission where I am managing a project entitled "Global Conservation And Development (GCAD)" involving a team of about 20 people. We develop and provide EU policy makers with the tools required for the assessment and monitoring of protected areas in developing countries. Our efforts are focusing on better and free information for improved decision-making. See e.g. http://dopa.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ or http://econservation.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
Appointed since 2020 to set up the new European Commission's Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity
I further contributed to a number of research and development projects focusing on information systems involving other teams from different countries (see below).
Ongoing projects
BIOPAMA 2 (June 2017 - June 2023): Contributor to the project.
This second phase of BIOPAMA (see below) is managed by the JRC and the IUCN. The project will further support existing institutions and networks by building their capacity to strengthen policy and to implement well informed decisions on biodiversity conservation and protected areas management. The JRC will provide the technical and scientific assistance to set up and further develop the regional observatories for the 3 regions using the DOPA as the backbone architecture (DOPA).
The project is funded by the 11th European Development Fund. More at http://www.biopama.org
Budget: 60 M Euros
Partners: 2
Past projects
BIOPAMA (July 2011 - June 2016): Co-author of the project.
BIOPAMA stands for Biodiversity and Protected Areas (PAs) Management in the ACP regions (African, Caribbean and Pacific regions). The objective of this project managed by the JRC, IUCN and GIZ is to enhance existing institutions and networks by building their capacity to strengthen policy and to implement well informed decisions on biodiversity conservation and protected areas management. While the IUCN will focus on capacity building, the JRC will provide the technical and scientific assistance to set up regional observatories for the 3 regions, observatories that will be largely derived from the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA). GIZ is contributing with issues dealing with access and benefit sharing.
The project is funded by the 10th European Development Fund. More at http://www.biopama.org
Budget: 20 M Euros
Partners: 3
UncertWeb (February 2010 - January 2013): Author of the Work Package on uncertainty propagation in habitat models for biodiversity. Leader of Work Package 4.
UncertWeb is developing the uncertainty enabled model web. The Model Web concept, formulated within the Global Earth Observation System of Systems activity envisages the integration of complex resources, such as data and models, to construct complex models, composed of chains of model and data components exposed as web services. This offers exciting opportunities for model development in a more loosely coupled, component oriented manner, encouraging sharing, re-use and easy access. More at www.uncertweb.org
Budget: 3.7 M Euros
Partners: 7
EuroGEOSS (May 2009 - April 2012): Co-author of the Workpackage on Biodiversity, Leader of Work Package 4 on setting up an Operating Capacity for biodiversity
EuroGEOSS is a large scale integrated project in the Seventh Framework programme of the European Commission. It is part of the thematic area: "ENV.2008.4.1.1.1: European environment Earth observation system supporting INSPIRE and compatible with GEOSS". EuroGEOSS demonstrates the added value to the scientific community and society of making existing systems and applications interoperable and used within the GEOSS and INSPIRE frameworks. The project built an initial operating capacity for a European Environment Earth Observation System in the three strategic areas of Drought, Forestry and Biodiversity. It has further undertaken the research necessary to develop this further into an advanced operating capacity that provides access not just to data but also to analytical models made understandable and usable by scientists from different disciplinary domains. More at www.eurogeoss.eu
Budget: 6.1 M Euros
Partners: 23
INTAMAP (September 2007 - August 2009): Co-author of the project, member of the Management Committee, Leader of Work Package 6
INTAMAP is a STREP (specific targeted research project) under FP6, (IST Call 5: IST-2005-2.5.12, ICT for Environmental Risk Management). Starting date was Sept 1, 2006 and the project finished Aug 31, 2009. INTAMAP was about the development of an interoperable framework for real time automatic mapping of critical environmental variables by extending spatial statistical methods and employing open, web-based, data exchange and visualisation tools. All the methods and implementations of methods are open source and downloadable from the project web site: www.intamap.org
News: INTAMAP produced 3 out of 3 of the best papers for the 2011 Best-Paper Awards Computers & Geosciences
Budget: 2.4 M Euros
Partners: 7