Ian Swingland

Ian Swingland
Born	Ian Richard Swingland 2 November 1946 (1946-11-02) Barnet, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Biodiversity; academia, business and charities
Years active	1968–present
Spouse	Berit Viig (1973–1974) Fiona Lawson (1985–present)

Professor Ian Swingland founded DICE (Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology) at the University of Kent in 1989. While at DICE he served as director and was elected to the first Chair in Conservation Biology in the United Kingdom.

Early years, education and academic career

Ian Swingland is the son and only child of Flora Mary (née Fernie), born 1924 in Newcastle of Scottish parents who trained at Queen Elizabeth's School for Girls, and Mrs. Hoster’s Secretarial College where she was recruited by Special Operations Executive before working as a Senior Lecturer in the Polytechnic of Central London (which became the University of Westminster), and Hugh Maurice Webb Swingland, born 1922, an electrical engineer who rose to the rank of Director, MoD Procurement Executive after serving in the Royal Navy North Sea minesweepers during World War II. He is married to Fiona Mairi (née Lawson),a dentist who now works at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, and they have two children, Kieran (born 1987, Ann Arbor, Michigan USA) and Anna (born 1989, Canterbury, England). Swingland was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, London, followed by London, Edinburgh and Oxford Universities. At London University, he read zoology and social anthropology and published his first scientific paper on the location of memory in a vertebrate in Nature in 1969 while an undergraduate. After working for Shell Research International for a short time, he took a PhD in ecology in the Forestry and Natural Resources Department at Edinburgh University on a Department for International Development (formerly Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Overseas Development Administration) Scholarship. In 1974 he joined Oxford University Zoology Department for five years funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) and the Royal Society to work on the giant tortoises of Aldabra Atoll, Western Indian Ocean. He has been a former Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, University of Florence, University of Auckland, and Manchester Metropolitan University and has worked as a research mathematician for Royal Dutch Shell at Sittingbourne, Kent UK.

In 1979 he was appointed to the University of Kent to create their Natural Science Continuing Education programme where he played a significant role in creating the national Access course which is designed for people who would like to study in higher education but who left school without the usual qualifications, and ten years later founded DICE.

DICE

DICE (The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology) is a multi-disciplinary research and postgraduate conservation training institute which has always maintained its commitment to the ideals set out at its founding: 'to fuse the accumulated experience of practical conservation projects and state of the art biological science with realistic perspectives of economics and the social sciences'. The name was chosen in recognition of Ian Swingland’s good friend, Gerald Durrell, and his lifelong commitment to conservation. Swingland retired from the University in 1999 because of ill health, which continues to deteriorate, but serves as Professor Emeritus, and as chair of the Durrell Trust for Conservation Biology which raises grants, scholarships and endowments for DICE so that it can expand its mission.

Involvement with other enterprises

As well as DICE, Ian Swingland has founded many other enterprises and institutions such as: the Herpetological Conservation Trust 1989 (renamed the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust ), an international NGO and the international journal Biodiversity and Conservation 1989, the world’s first multidisciplinary journal in biodiversity management and sustainable development. He also co-founded a number of companies (such as Sustainable Forestry Management) which apply business and market approaches to benefiting conservation, biodiversity and people on an integrated, sustainable and ethical basis and co-founded, with Neil Wates and Colin Spedding, the think-tank RURAL in 1980 (Responsible Use of Resources in Agriculture and on the Land).

He was a draftsman of part of the Convention on Biological Diversity concerning fair and equitable sharing of benefits (PrepComm UNEP Nairobi 1990) and was asked by Peter Scott to create the IUCN/SSC (International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission) Tortoise Group in 1981 which is now the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group.

As with the international agencies, Ian Swingland has had a lifelong involvement in national and international charities which improve the environment and people’s standard of living. He has influenced them to increasingly structure projects to become self-funding, economic sustainability being a precursor of environmental sustainability. He was a Trustee of Earthwatch 1999-2009, and is Trust Chairman of Operation Wallacea. The Trust funds projects which seek to empower communities and individuals to develop successful commercially viable enterprises linked to the protection of biodiversity. Funding for nature conservation projects often includes provision of alternative livelihoods but in many cases these alternatives are not then linked to enhanced protection of the wildlife and habitats. He is also chair of the Rural Regeneration Unit, a Social Enterprise dedicated to self-help projects and a substantial food co-operative which has won prizes from the World Health Organisation and Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and the Durrell Trust for Conservation Biology, the Trust dedicated to support DICE. He has served on the RSPCA Council 1990-1995 and as Chair of its Wildlife Committee 1985-1990, as well as delivering their 150th Anniversary Lecture. Since 1985 he has served at various times on the Council of Fauna & Flora International [5] and has been the longest standing board member to the Darwin Initiative, which funds multi-sectoral international projects in biodiversity management for the UK government. He was Chair of the Apple and Pear Research Council, now part of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board since 2003, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Centre for Biodiversity and Restoration Ecology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and as an Ambassador to the Galapagos Conservation Trust

International conservation work

As well as being an advisor on conservation and biodiversity management to the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, the Asian Development Bank, and the UK Government, he has also had many other international conservation involvements such as: being employed as a research and management biologist in the Kafue National Park, Zambia, helping to write the management plan; and one of the largest single biodiversity project in the world extending over the largest mangrove forest, the Sundarban Biodiversity Conservation Project in Bangladesh. Professor Swingland has been heavily involved with the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development, the largest biodiversity project belonging to the Commonwealth and was appointed Chairman of the International Board of Trustees (2002). This 369,000 hectare reserve initiative has transformed itself from a top down donor-dependent project to a more market-driven organisation that works closely with the local community, the Rupununi. He also advised China on integrated ecosystem management projects, its aim was to reduce land degradation, create alternative livelihoods, and conserve biodiversity using a market, not donation, approach.

Awards and recognitions

Ian Swingland was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours List for 2007 for his services to conservation. He was given an honorary Doctor of Sciences by the University of Kent for his service to biodiversity conservation. He was awarded the Freedom of London 2001 and made an Honorary Bioscience Fellow, Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International, 2002. He is a Fellow of the Zoological Society (FZS) 1974, and the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS)1992. He is a member of the Athenaeum Club, London 2004, and the Special Forces Club 2009.

Published works

The Ecology of Animal Movement Swingland, IR, Greenwood, PG (editors). (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983) ISBN 0198575750

Living in a Patchy Environment Shorrocks, B and Swingland, IR (editors). (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) Hardback ISBN 0198545916 Softback ISBN 978-0198545910

Integrated Protected Area Management Walkey, M, Swingland, IR and Russell, S.(editors) (MA and Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999) ISBN 0 412 80360 7

Carbon, Biodiversity, Conservation and Income: An analysis of a free market approach to Land use change and forestry in Developing and Developed Countries. Swingland IR,. Bettelheim EC, Grace J, Ghillean T, Prance and Lindsay, Saunders S (compilers) Theme Issue for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 2002

Capturing carbon and conserving biodiversity: the market approach Swingland IR (editor), (Royal Society-Earthscan, 2003) 392 pp. Hardback ISBN 9781853839504, Softback 392 pp ISBN 9781853839511

CO2 e biodiversità: Un approccio integrato a favore del clima e del patrimonio naturale. Swingland I.R. (editor). (Edizioni Ambiente, Milano, Italy, 2004) 296 pp. ISBN 88-89014-19-9

In excess of fifty papers published in books and journals such as Nature, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Journal of Zoology London, Journal of Animal Ecology, Animal Behaviour, and Proceedings of the Royal Society.

External links

• DICE (the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology)
• IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group
• Interview with Ian Swingland in Kampala, Uganda on YouTube
• Biologist uses carbon trading to grow forests (Australia)
• Science and Economics Work Together Toward Environmental Improvement