Breaking Barriers: Women in Wildlife

Learn about the women who shaped ZSL's history, and those who continue to tackle conservation challenges today.

From Sophia Raffles to Joan Procter to Dame Georgina Mace, women have always been a driving force in ZSL’s story. This Wild Talks event will celebrate their impact and showcase today’s women leading vital projects across the globe. 

ZSL has a strong history of enabling pioneering women to break new ground and tackle the biggest conservation challenges of the moment. For the past 200 years, women at ZSL have paved the way for others to follow in their footsteps. In this event, speakers shared insights into trailblazing women in our history, and showcase the projects taking place right now that enable and empower women to uphold local knowledge, build livelihoods, and protect and restore nature. 

At this event there was opportunity to meet some of our female Trustees, and for attendees to learn about getting involved further in the governance of ZSL. 

Hosted by Lucy Cooke, zoologist, author and broadcaster.

Lucy Cooke is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning documentary filmmaker and broadcaster, National Geographic explorer and TED talker with a Masters in zoology from Oxford university. Her latest book BITCH: A revolutionary guide to sex, evolution & the female animal, was named one of the 50 best books of 2022 by the Telegraph, and she has presented a range of natural history programmes for the BBC including Springwatch and the Animal Planet series Nature's Strangest Mysteries: Solved.

Speakers

Tina Campanella, Bicentenary Project Manager, ZSL

Tina is Bicentenary Project Manager at ZSL, where she has spent the past decade in the communications team telling stories that connect people to wildlife. Before joining ZSL, she was a journalist working across leading national women’s titles. Tina has a longstanding passion for uncovering and sharing the remarkable, often overlooked women in ZSL’s history — from pioneering scientists and conservationists to trailblazing zookeepers — and has championed the celebration of ZSL women as part of the organisation’s 200th anniversary.

Dr Heidi Ma, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Institute of Zoology, ZSL

Heidi is interested in biodiversity conservation and pressing environmental issues in regions where a strong evidence base is most needed for making effective policies. Heidi's research covers a broad range of species including Hainan gibbon, Yangtzee finless porpoise, pangolin, and blue-crowned laughingthrush, and she works closely with local communities, stakeholders and partners to achieve on-the-ground conservation action that benefits both people and wildlife. Together with her supervisor Samuel Turvey, she initiated the UK-China Conservation network in 2017 to connect UK conservation organisations and scientific research institutions, share contacts and resources in both China and the UK, and to help build conservation capacity in China.

Olivia Wilson-Holt, Human-Wildlife Coexistence Projects Manager, ZSL

Liv works in ZSL’s Conservation and Policy directorate as Human-Wildlife Coexistence Projects Manager, supporting our country teams in Africa and Asia with project implementation, strategy and design on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence themes and promoting best practice measures and learning. With a Masters in Conservation Science, she has spent the last seven years in NGO roles working with Africa, Asia and Latin America teams of civil society organisations and researchers, building knowledge of and applying community-focussed, locally-appropriate interventions to tackle illegal wildlife trade, mitigate human-wildlife conflict and reduce unsustainable use of natural resources. Liv is also a member of the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group. 

Dr Lucy Archer, Equity, Rights and Social Safeguards Programme Manager, ZSL

Lucy is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist with over 10 years’ experience working for NGO, governmental and academic institutions. Her main interest is in understanding the human dimensions inherent in biodiversity conservation, and how local voices, perspectives, and knowledge systems can be better represented in conservation planning to work towards collaborative, practical, and inclusive conservation. Lucy co-leads ZSL’s FAIRER conservation programme and supports project teams in implementing our FAIRER conservation framework; a system designed to enable us to better deliver equitable conservation impact, whilst safeguarding the local communities, people, and places with which we work.