Professor Iain Gordon is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Division of Tropical Environments and Societies, at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1981 and his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1986. He was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Abertay in 2013. Throughout his career, which spans research, research management and provision of policy advice, Professor Gordon has played an active role in promoting the value of biodiversity and its importance in the provision of ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Over the past 25 years, he has gained an international reputation for scientific leadership and research excellence in interdisciplinary approaches, particularly in the context of managing land use to promote biodiversity. In recognition of his contributions to science, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 1995 and Fellow of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh in 2012.
Professor Herbert H.T. Prins is an Emeritus Professor of Resource Ecology at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. At Cambridge (UK), Professor Tim Clutton-Brock was his doctoral supervisor. He was Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton University (USA), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, (Australia), University of Natal (South Africa), Foundation Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia) and an Honorary Professor of Computational Ecology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). He has received the Aldo Leopold Award, was appointed an Officer in the Order of Oranje Nassau by Royal Decree of HM The Queen Beatrix, and an Officer in the Order of the Golden Ark, bestowed by HRH Prince Bernhard. He has (co-)authored nearly 500 publications, co-edited 12 books, written one book on African buffalo, and has supervised 99 PhD students from all around the globe. The foci of his work are migratory Eurasian geese, the Trans-Himalayas of Central Asia, and the African savannas.