A major oversight in most assessments of climate change is the inadequate consideration of indirect impacts on biodiversity due to human responses to climate change. On August 1, 2016, Dr. Nikhil Advani, Lead Specialist, Climate, Communities and Biodiversity at World Wildlife Fund- US presented in Nairobi, Kenya on the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group’s Global Change Impacts working group, which documents coping responses of human communities to climate change in 20 countries across Africa.
Featured Speaker
Dr. Nikhil Advani leads World Wildlife Fund’s work on climate, communities and biodiversity. This includes conducting vulnerability assessments and developing adaptation strategies for World Wildlife Fund priority species, as well as researching how rural communities are being affected by changes in weather and climate, how they are responding, and how their responses impact biodiversity. Based on these findings, his team is developing and implementing projects that help wildlife and human communities persist in a changing climate.
Nikhil was born and brought up in Kenya, and went on to pursue his Bachelor’s Degree and Doctor of Philosophy Degree at The University of Texas at Austin. His thesis focused on gaining a better mechanistic understanding of species response to climate change, using the Glanville Fritillary butterfly as a model species.