Helen is a research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science (ICCS) at the University of Oxford, working principally on the relationship between conservation and human rights and on applied, collaborative research processes. She is the lead author of Conducting Research in Conservation: a social science perspective and of Conservation and Human Rights: an introduction. She has a mixed background in the natural and social sciences (undergrad degree in zoology and psychology) and has moved back and forth during her career between the academic and NGO sectors.
In this talk Helen will explore the relationship between conservation and human rights. She will briefly summarise the history of this relationship and outline relevant human rights requirements under international law, based on their recently published guidance (Conservation and human rights: an introduction - ICCS). She will show how international human rights law has been used in court cases brought by indigenous peoples against evictions from their lands for conservation in Kenya and DRC. She will then describe the Transformative Pathways project (https://transformativepathways.net/), in which they are practising a rights-based approach and building on common ground as they support indigenous and community-led biodiversity monitoring in Kenya and Thailand. Finally she will offer some reflections on their experiences as researchers in following a rights-based approach in their work.