Systematic conservation planning (SCP) is a branch of conservation biology aimed at delivering on the ground actions to achieve conservation goals, which defines operational models covering design and implementation of conservation that strongly focus on collective action necessary to implement conservation. Madagascar, a mega-biodiversity hotspot, faces major biodiversity conservation challenges due to a combination of high diversity, endemism and a high degree of natural risk threat coupled with unplanned anthropogenic reasons, resulting a greater negative impact on global biodiversity. The nation is highly threatened its Malagasy biota due to loss of its biodiversity at an alarming rate during the past many decades. In the face of such developments and future environmental change, the prediction for Madagascar's biodiversity remains a concern as regional diversity will continue to decrease in response to the combined effects of climate and land cover change as many habitats are vulnerable to the future changes. This needs immediate attention from research and management communities to check from habitat loss and fragmentation to protect its biodiversity. The current study will employ the approach of SCP to look into this gap. This will help in spatial conservation prioritisation in Madagascar by using some of the tools and techniques based on the remote sensing, GIS and Zonation. SCP or conservation assessment, used for identifying important areas for biodiversity with focus on how conservation goals might be achieved efficiently, will be applied to evolve a conservation solution to effect on the existing conservation and management strategies of the island country.
For the last many years, I have been engaged in the interdisciplinary research, consultancy and management of environment and natural resources that aim at imparting valued service to the society for bringing innovative changes, progressive development and sustainability. My main focus during the academic and professional career has been in an interdisciplinary approach including biogeography, ecology, forest dynamics, biodiversity, climate change, rural development, sustainability and geo-informatics. I have a dynamic personality with the experience of working in multicultural environments including volunteering activities. I was a research and teaching faculty member in the Centre for Rural Studies, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, India – nation's highest centre of training and research for all the Civil Servants and top bureaucrats prior to joining as a Consultant-GIS in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, New Delhi. My research at KU focusses on an area related to the ‘Systematic conservation planning and protected area prioritisation in Madagascar'.
PAPERS PUBLISHED & PRESENTED IN WORKSHOPS/CONFERENCES:
EDITORSHIP - Associate Editor (2014-2015), Journal of Land and Rural Studies, SAGE