The continued and growing threats to biodiversity such as climate change, habitat loss, invasive species and pollution are creating a high demand for conservation work. Our biodiversity and conservation related courses place an emphasis on practical application rather than formal lectures, giving you the skills, knowledge and hands-on experience for a career in this sector.
You will be taught by practising professionals and industry experts, internationally recognised for their cutting-edge research, which means you will receive expert supervision and have access to advanced research facilities. In fact, 82% of our School’s biology research outputs are rated as either world-leading (4-star) or internationally excellent (3-star) by the Research Excellence Framework 2014.
We offer a huge range of inspiring research projects on contemporary issues, making use of our close links with industry partners including the Environment Agency; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the Natural History Museum and the Institute of Zoology.
You will have the opportunity to develop key field skills on our global field courses. Those on the MSc Biodiversity and Conservation programme will travel to Borneo or Cape Verde. On the Borneo trip, students visit a biodiversity hotspot in a tropical forest and are exposed to a wealth of animals. There are even gibbons and orangutangs right above the lecture theatres! There is a strong emphasis on practical training, in particular, training in survey methods, data collection, analysis and presentation.
On the Cape Verde trip, students visit a marine biodiversity hotspot, focusing on the diversity, behaviour, ecology, physiology, conservation and management of cetaceans (whales and dolphins), and marine turtles. The module covers the life history and migrations of turtles, their diving ability and behaviours, the social behaviour of dolphins, and the conservation of whales. It also includes a brief look at the sea-birds and sharks that will likely also be seen during field excursions.
Those choosing to on the MSc Plant and Fungal Taxonomy, Diversity and Conservation programme will travel to a biodiversity hotspot in Madagascar, where you will be exposed to a wealth of plant and fungal groups. This will provide an introduction to practical field work, including botanical surveys and flowering plant identification and how they can be applied to solving practical problems of conservation management as well as biodiversity research. It will be taught by botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre (KMCC) in Antananarivo.