Caroline Lees

BSc (Hons), Applied Zoology, Reading University, UK, 1989
MSc, Conservation Biology, D.I.C.E., University of Kent, UK, 1992
PhD, Species Conservation Planning Principles and Tools, University of Auckland, NZ, 2024

Caroline joined the CPSG staff in 2011 as a workshop facilitator and PVA modeller. Before CPSG she worked with zoos in the UK, Europe and later in Australasia where her work included evaluating field conservation efforts and providing policy advice, training and technical support to enhance the sustainability and conservation-relevance of ex situ wildlife populations. She continues to apply these skills at CPSG, through meta-population planning projects that aim to integrate more and less intensively managed populations under a single umbrella, using CPSG’s “One Plan Approach”. In recent years Caroline has led CPSG’s evaluation programme, focusing on the short, medium and long-term impacts of science-based, stakeholder-inclusive planning on conservation outcomes for species. Her current priorities include CPSG’s “Assess-to-Plan” (A2P) project which, through collaborative multi-species planning methods, is aiming to connect more threatened species to the conservation action they need using the information and expertise concentrated within the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species programme. 

Caroline and her husband Jonathan have three children and live in the UK.