Dr Vanessa Adams (Chair)

Dr Vanessa Adams is a Senior Lecturer in Conservation and Planning at the University of Tasmania. She has been engaged with the Protected Areas Collaboration in various roles since 2018 and is passionate about research and learning that improves protected area establishment and management.

In her teaching roles at University of Tasmania she coordinates the Master of Protected Area Management and Governance and associated Graduate Certificate and Professional honours and teaches the core protected area units.

Her research focuses on modelling dynamic social-ecological systems to inform conservation decisions that improve ecosystems and the communities they support. She has worked in roles ranging from actuarial analyst for global consulting firm Mercer HR to research scientist at universities.

She spent a year as a Fulbright scholar conducting research at University of Queensland in 2004 and completed her PhD at James Cook University in 2011. Prior to coming to Tasmania in 2018, she worked as a researcher and lecturer at universities including University of Queensland and Macquarie University. Vanessa regularly partners with relevant government agencies and NGOs to develop solutions for a range of conservation problems.

Dr Mick Abbott

Dr Mick Abbott is a professor in landscape architecture at Lincoln University in Aotearoa New Zealand. His work specialises in protected areas management and in particular visitor engagement and experience design. He is also director of www.wildlab.org.nz

Mick is a former chair of the Aoraki Conservation board, and editor of a series of books on landscape themes including Beyond the scene, Making our place, and Wild Heart, the possibility of wilderness in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dr Bill Borrie

Dr Bill Borrie is an Associate Professor in the School of Life and Environmental Science at Deakin University, Australia. His research interests are focused on the meanings, experiences, and management of parks and protected areas. Dr. Borrie’s writings on wilderness have raised issues of technology and wilderness, the ‘disneyfication’ of wilderness, the difficult notion of primitiveness, the role of wilderness as a sanctuary, and on the measurement, monitoring, and management of quality visitor experiences.

Bill has conducted research in Yellowstone National Park; the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge; the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness; the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and Petrified Forest National Park. Bill teaches in the Protected Area Management Distance Education Program (PAMDEP) graduate certificate program. He has a Ph.D. in Forestry from Virginia Tech and a B.S. and M.S. in Forest Science from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Borrie is a Fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences. ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3788-5220

Dr Hilda Waqa-Sakiti

Dr. Hilda Waqa-Sakiti has attained a Bachelor of Science degree (Biology/Chemistry), Post-graduate Diploma in Environmental Science, Master of Science (Biology) degree and PhD (Biology) from the University of the South Pacific (USP), Fiji.

An area of focus of her PhD thesis was on Conservation, Biodiversity & Natural Resource Management i.e. Biogeography, Ecological Assessments, applications of Molecular Biology and the application of a GIS tool- Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) which generates predicted habitat suitability maps under current and predicted future climatic conditions for the distribution of rare and endemic species.This tool allows for proper data analysis and the identification of priority sites that may require national protection and conservation measures. Currently Dr. Hilda is a Lecturer for a post-graduate course in EIA & SEA at PaCE-SD, USP.  

Christine Schlesinger

Christine is the Chair of the Environment Discipline at Charles Darwin University and is based at the university’s desert campus in Alice Springs, central Australia. Her research and teaching are focussed on ecology and conservation of arid zone fauna. Much of her current and past research is in collaboration with protected area managers in including Uluru-Kata-Tjuta National Park, Tjoritja West MacDonnell ranges National Park, and in Indigenous Protected Areas. Christine has been involved with PAC since 2017.

Jimaima Turaga

Jimaima is the Policy Coordinator and is the focal point in advising and supporting the development, implementation and monitoring of University policies and procedures while ensuring alignment to the University’s governance framework and compliance with legislative requirements of USP's member countries. She is responsible for coordinating and facilitating the cyclic review of policies, including identifying policy gaps, managing the communication strategy for the USP Policy Library and developing systems to enhance operational efficiency of policy management.  This is a critical area given that the University is established and governed by the Charter, Statutes, Ordinances, and Regulations which are operationalised by policies and procedures that must be kept current for effective governance and accrediting purposes. 

Jimaima has 7 years of professional experience from the Reserve Bank of Fiji in policy-related work. As a former Policy Analyst at RBF, she was directly involved in policy development, review, implementation and coordination as well as conducting industry and stakeholder consultations and policy training. She holds a Bachelor in Accounting Financial Management and Banking and Finance from USP and is also currently pursuing post-graduate studies towards her Masters in Diplomacy and International Affairs. 

Stuart Cowell

Based in Hobart, Stuart owes his expertise in Healthy Country Planning to over twenty-five years of experience, working at the forefront of Natural Resource Management. Stuart is renowned for a pragmatic approach to land management, ensuring all stakeholder needs are met while helping to find solutions and an effective path forwards.

Stuart has been instrumental in developing the widely used Healthy Country Planning concept – a community-based adaptation of the Open Standards adaptive management framework in the context of remote Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australia. He manages and supports Conservation Management’s highly experienced, skilled and innovative team of planners and facilitators, connecting clients to the team members best suited to project needs.