Nicolas PILCHER

Dr. Nicolas Pilcher has spent the last 35 years working on marine research and conservation projects throughout the Indo-Pacific. He is the Founder and Director of the Marine Research Foundation, a private NGO based in Sabah, Malaysia, through which he implements projects across the Indian and Pacific oceans, particularly related to marine turtle, shark, ray and dugong conservation, and how they are impacted by fisheries bycatch. Nick is past-President of the International Sea Turtle Society (2002-2003) and is served three terms as Co-Chair of IUCN’s Marine Turtle Specialist Group (2003-2015). He is a member of the IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Sub Committee, which drives priority-setting for marine conservation at a global level, and Technical Advisor to the UNEP-CMS Memorandum of Understanding on Dugong conservation, a Technical Advisor to the UNEP-CMS IOSEA Memorandum of Understanding on sea turtle conservation, and an advisor to WWF's Global Marine Turtle Programme. He also serves on several advisory boards and committees for agencies that fund marine conservation project. Dr. Pilcher’s work focuses on reduction of bycatch of endangered marine fauna, originally related to turtles but more recently with sharks and rays, dugongs and other marine mammals. His work has helped revise management interventions by the government agencies as related to hatcheries and turtles, and elsewhere he has developed strategic action plans for the conservation of turtles (e.g. Eritrea, Pakistan, Qatar, Malaysia, and regionally as part of the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape programme and the Coral Triangle Initiatives), and is regularly consulted by State and Federal bodies on marine conservation issues. He was  the lead technical advisor on the EWS/WWF Arabian Gulf-wide turtle research and conservation project involving Qatar, Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and consultant to IUCN’s Asia Regional Office driving the development of a multi-million dollar port in India while being totally turtle-friendly. Nick has published extensively on marine science and conservation, and is on the editorial boards of several scientific journals.