Campaigner: Barbara Maas

Species: Homo conscious

Websites:

Head of International Species Conservation, the Voice of Maui and Hector’s Dolphin

Dr Barbara Maas has worked in international wildlife conservation for over two decades and on every continent. Her strong passion and deep sense of kinship for the natural world has been the guiding theme throughout her life. A wildlife biologist by training, she studied the behavioural ecology of bat-eared foxes at the University of Cambridge before taking up a postdoctoral position at the University of Oxford. An advisor and chief executive to conservation and animal welfare groups around the world for 18 years, she has also been involved in nature films and is a well published author. In 2001 she moved to New Zealand, where she worked as a civil servant in marine conservation and first became aware the plight of Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins. They have featured prominently in her life ever since. As Head of NABU International’s Species Conservation Programme, Barbara continues to be involved in Maui’s and Hector’s dolphin protection, as well as other conservation projects in Africa and Asia.