#18 Navigating the biodiversity crisis with Dan Kraus

In this episode, we’re speaking with Dan Kraus. Over the past 25 years, Dan has been working as an ecologist, environmental planner and conservation scientist in public, private and non-governmental organizations. Dan has recently joined Wildlife Conservation Society-Canada as the Director of National Conservation. In this role, he is working to advance the Key Biodiversity Areas initiative, or KBAs for short, which is a new global standard that seeks to identify and map critical habitat for threatened species. Dan discusses how KBAs will help to provide the high resolution biodiversity data that will be essential as we strive to improve our systems of protected areas around the world. As someone who has worked extensively at conservation NGOs in Canada, Dan has developed a diverse skillset that allows him to thrive at the science-policy interface. In our chat, Dan shares his perspective on the vital role that NGOs will continue to play for the future of environmental protection, and also how an individual’s passion for the environment can continue to lead to conservation successes from grass roots beginnings. We also talked about Dan’s prolific activity as a conservation science communicator and his recent work as both a PhD student and a teacher at the University of Waterloo. https://www.wcscanada.org/