User:Nads19/Erik Meijaard

Erik Meijaard (born in 1967 in Haarlem, the Netherlands) is a Dutch biologist and conservationist. His research focuses on the mammals of western Indonesia and their conservation.

Life
Meijaard grew up in Germany, where he lived from 1978 until 1985. He obtained his bachelor's degree in environmental science from the Wageningen University & Research in 1986. He received another bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Amsterdam in 1990. From 1990 to 1994, he studied tropical ecology  at the Wageningen University & Research and the University of Amsterdam, where he graduated with a  Master of Science degree. After studying at the Australian National University beginning in 2000, he graduated with his Ph.D. in biological anthropology in 2004. From April 1994 to June 1997, he worked as an ecologist for the Tropenbos Kalimantan project in Indonesia, where he was involved in studying the distribution patterns of large mammals in Borneo and Sumatra, investigations into the illegal wildlife trade, as well as the confiscation of illegally kept wild animals. From October 1997 to January 1999, he was the programme coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) the Netherlands. He planned and managed projects in Indonesia aimed at conserving forests, coral reefs and endangered animal species, and he coordinated the bilateral collaboration between the Indonesian WNF and WWF. In 1999, the book Our Vanishing Relative: The Status of Wild Orang-Utans at the Close of the Twentieth Century, a report about the decline of orangutan populations, was published on behalf of the conservation organization Tropenbos International. From June 2002 to May 2004, he was a consultant at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR, Indonesia). He co-edited and co-authored the book Life after Logging: Reconciling Wildlife Conservation and Production Forestry in Indonesian Borneo, published in 2005, and he has written numerous articles on vertebrate diversity in Kalimantan Timur and the effects of logging and other factors related to deforestation on biodiversity. From March 2006 to July 2009, he worked as Senior Scientist and later Program Director for the nature conservation organisation, The Nature Conservancy Indonesia. Among others, he coordinated the Orangutan Conservation Support Program's (OCSP) Borneo projects and managed forest conservation programmes in Borneo, Sulawesi, and Papua. From January 2012 to December 2014, he was a guest researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research, where he worked with students on various forestry research projects. From August 2009 to June 2015, he was the senior adviser for People & Nature Consulting International and was involved in environmental planning, sustainable forest management, the protection of animals, mining, plantation management, organisational planning and budgeting. Together with Dr Marc Ancrenaz, he founded the Borneo Futures initiative in March 2011, focusing on conducting research, disseminating information about endangered species, and promoting sustainable agriculture in Borneo. From February 2016 to June 2017, he was Habitat Hutan Alam Indonesia environmental-protection organisation's director in Jakarta, and in 2017, he moved to Brunei as the Managing Director of the environmental consultancy Borneo Futures. He has been an Honorary Professor at the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) at the University of Queensland since June 2017 and an Honorary Professor at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent. In September 2023, he started as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Amsterdam.

In 2004, Meijaard and Colin Groves presented a revised study on the genus Tragulus in the chevrotain family. Eight subspecies of the Greater mouse-deer (Tragulus napu) were recognised, instead of the 27 previously, and the Vietnam mouse-deer (Tragulus versicolor), long considered a subspecies of the Greater mouse-deer, was elevated to species status. Only a year later, Meijaard and Groves described the Yellow-striped chevrotain (Moschiola kathygre). In 2011, Meijaard wrote the chapter on chevrotains, and he co-authored the chapter on pigs (Suidae) in the second volume of the Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Meijaard was one of the first taxonomists to classify the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis)  species in 2017. In the same year, Meijaard published a study on the Williamson's mouse-deer (Tragulus williamsoni). It was long considered a synonym, that is to say, a subspecies of the Lesser mouse-deer (Tragulus kanchil), but the skull size of existing specimens of their type, collected in 1916, and new information about a specimen from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China, led Meijaard to consider it a distinct species.

Meijaard is married to spatial scientist Rona Anne Dennis; the couple has a daughter.

Web-links

 * Curriculum Vitae (Stand 2017)
 * Profil bei LinkedIn