Joshua Powell

My research interests concern the ecology and conservation of rare and globally threatened species, with a primary focus on terrestrial mammals, particularly large carnivores.  My current research investigates opportunities and challenges for the transboundary conservation of the Endangered Amur tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) and other large carnivores in north-east Asia. This necessitates the use of a range of research techniques from the biological and social sciences within an inter-disciplinary framework, in order to evaluate both threats to transboundary Amur tiger populations, at a local and regional scale, and potential opportunities and limitations for conservation interventions, including international wildlife law, conservation translocations, and mitigation of human-tiger conflict. Funding is provided by the London NERC Doctoral Training Programme (DTP).  Much of my work is concerned with applied conservation. With Peter Coals (Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), University of Oxford), I co-founded Rangers Without Borders, a conservation research programme focussed on the work of wildlife rangers, particularly in understudied environments. As part of my broader research interests in the conservation of globally threatened species, I also maintain interests in island conservation, the subject of my Churchill Fellowship.  I am a National Geographic Explorer and one of the faces of WWF’s #WWFVoices campaign on global biodiversity.