Hi Dave, thanks for being this month’s spotlight! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your research interests?
My name is Dave Roberts. I’m a Reader in Biodiversity Conservation here at the University of Kent and I’ve been at DICE for 15 years. I started here in 2010 and prior to that, I worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew as an orchid specialist for just over eight years, specialising in orchids of the Western Indian Ocean, particularly Madagascar and West Africa. My research interests are quite broad. I research what I find interesting and hopefully useful! So, I work on extinction modelling – how do we know when a species is extinct? But a lot of my research now is on the wildlife trade, everything from sustainable development, right through to illegal wildlife trade on the dark web.
You have recently been awarded funding from the Leverhulme Trust. What will you be working on?
Yes, I’ve got a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, so I’m very excited about that. The fellowship is for a year and a half and I’ll be working on how permit costs and the regulations on importing and exporting wildlife can actually drive illegal wildlife trade – because people get confused or the permit costs are too high and therefore either they decide not to continue the process or they decide to do it illegally.
The thing that I’m particularly interested in is engaging with the communities that are impacted by the regulation and the permit cost. I’m interested to get their opinion to try to identify the points within this chain where the stumbling blocks are. Of course the regulations are there to protect the species in trade. But which points do people need support with? Which do the government need to give better messaging around and how can the government help streamline that process so that trade can take place legally?
I’ve worked a lot on wildlife trade and I’ve talked to a lot of people who are involved in the wildlife trade, from commercial people who are importing to the hobbyist who wants to get a particular species of orchid, or send something to a friend in another country. I’ve heard the problems that they face in terms of doing this process legally and so this inspired me to work on this.
And finally, can you share a fun fact about yourself?
I used to do free diving. I really enjoyed that until I moved here and I didn’t have anybody to go free diving with, so I had to stop it. You can’t really do free diving by yourself, it’s not a good idea!