Woman in conservation interview: Marites Gatan-Balbas, Mabuwaya Foundation

Meet the Partners

  I am Marites Gatan-Balbas, but most people call me Tess. I am the Chief Operating Officer of the Mabuwaya Foundation. I manage the day-to-day activities of the foundation, but I love giving school lectures, organising workshops, facilitating community consultations and coordinating with our partners and collaborators.   Why did you choose to become a conservationist? I am a graduate of Forestry. My parents are farmers, but they were able to send me to the local university in Isabela Province….

Woman in conservation interview: Mirza Kusrini, Bogor University

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Mirza is a lecturer at the Faculty of Forestry & Environment, Institut Pertanian Bogor University, and a researcher, focusing on amphibians and reptiles.         How did you choose your field of study? Nature and wildlife always fascinated me when I was a child. It was not only my parents that brought me to nature, growing up I watched documentaries like Born Free and read the Adventure series of young adult books written by Willard Price. The protagonists…

Woman in conservation interview: Trang Nguyen, WildAct

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  Trang Nguyen is the Founder and Executive Director of WildAct.        Did you have a role model that influenced your decision to work in conservation? Dian Fossey definitely had a big impact in my career choice. I remember when I was very small and back in the day where wildlife conservation was a very new concept in Vietnam, I watched Gorillas in the Mist. I had some very first ideas of what conservationists and conservation researchers do…

ASAP talks freshwater fish with Mike Baltzer from Shoal

Meet the Partners, News

To celebrate the launch of WWF’s report ‘Forgotten Fishes’, we spoke with Mike Baltzer, Executive Director of Shoal. Mike shared his thoughts on the threats facing freshwater fishes globally and in Southeast Asia, as well as some of the reasons he is hopeful for the future.   A report called Forgotten Fishes has just been released by WWF, which Shoal collaborated on. Can you briefly summarise the report? The report is a call to action by many of the leading…

Announcing the launch of the Saola Foundation for Annamite Mountains Conservation

Meet the Partners, News

Announcing the launch of the Saola Foundation for Annamite Mountains Conservation Lorraine Scotson, CEO & Bill Robichaud, President We are excited to announce the launch of a new organization, the Saola Foundation for Annamite Mountains Conservation. The Saola Foundation is dedicated to helping to save one of the most enigmatic ASAP species, the Saola Pseudoryx nghetinhensis.  Saola are one of the most beautiful and unusual creatures in Asia – a shy tropical bovid, most closely related to wild cattle, yet…

Funding in Partnership: A discussion with the Oriental Bird Club

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Funding in Partnership: A discussion with the Oriental Bird Club At ASAP we are developing partnerships with similar organisations in order to increase support for our Partners and the conservation of ASAP species.  The Oriental Bird Club (OBC) is for birders and ornithologists around the world who are interested in birds of the Oriental region and their conservation. Through generous support of their members and sponsors, the OBC Conservation Fund has supported over 250 projects to date. We spoke with…

Talking crocs and emergency funding with Steve Platt

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Talking crocs and emergency funding with Steve Platt We spoke with Dr Steven G. Platt, Associate Conservation Herpetologist at Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)-Myanmar Program, and a member of the IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group. We discussed whether crocodiles get fair representation in conservation, and how emergency funding can be a life saver for projects.  Do you think reptiles get a fair representation in conservation in Southeast Asia? There is recognition that turtles and crocodiles are in trouble, but I would say crocodiles…

Talking Tamaraw conservation with Emmanuel Schutz

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Talking Tamaraw conservation with Emmanuel Schutz We spoke with Emmanuel Schutz, Program Manager and Member of the Board of Trustees at D’ABOVILLE Foundation and Demo Farm Inc. He shared with us an exciting development in Tamaraw conservation, and what the next steps are for the species. Tell us about the Tamaraw. What caused it to become Critically Endangered? Like many other wildlife species around the world, especially Asian wild cattle, the Tamaraw has seen its status drastically impacted by the…

Interview with Megan Cromp, Founder and Director of Key Conservation

Meet the Partners, News

We are pleased to be partnering with Key Conservation, a conservation tech non-profit established to help conservationists gain real-time support and funding. Founder and Director Megan Cromp answers our questions about the app and how ASAP Partners can get involved. What led you to come up with the idea for Key Conservation? While I was working for a sea turtle organization in the Caribbean, we received a call on our sea turtle hotline that a nest was being washed out…

An interview with Will Duckworth: “There’s something about Asia”

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Will Duckworth is the ASAP Species Advisor. He has been involved with ASAP since the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria Southeast Asia Campaign of 2011-2013. How did you get into conservation? Will: As a small child growing up in England in the 1960’s there were a number of important influences for me. I became interested in mammals first through being read to and seeing them in zoos. I grew up in a small town where a leading British birdwatcher had…