PhD research
Catherine Wensink
Catherine holds a BSc in Zoology from Queen Mary College University of London and an MSc in Conservation Biology from Manchester Metropolitan University.
Catherine has worked for various conservation bodies since 2007. Over this time she has been involved in projects based on sustaining biodiversity and other aspects of heritage while contributing to the well-being of the local community.She is a passionate advocate for the stunning biodiversity which exists in the UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies its global importance and our responsibility to protect it. The links between this and sustainable solutions to the challenges of island life are some of the most enjoyable aspects of her work.
One of Catherine’s core roles working with NGOs has been building and maintaining networks: bringing them together in regular working group/ annual meetings and occasional conferences from conservation practitioner up to Ministerial level. New links are important in driving forward change and responding to emerging issues.
She has visited several of the UKOTs and CDs while undertaking project work for UKOTCF (as well as spending a year on the Dutch Caribbean Island, Bonaire, when her children were little).
Bram Wanrooij
My research currently focuses on how place attachment and relational entanglement in the Anthropocene affect climate resilience on islands.
As globalization has shrunk the world, climate change has reinforced the idea that we have entered a new geological and social epoch, which social scientists have dubbed: the Anthropocene. Within it, the classic human-nature divide no longer makes sense as we have become relationally entangled, not just with each other, but with our planet. We are the driving force of change - a realization which cries out for a transdisciplinary approach which brings together the 'natural' sciences with the humanities. Within this framework, islands emerge as relational systems and quintessential places, to which people attach themselves, developing a sense of identity and connection - islanders, interacting with global forces.
Are islands particular vulnerable to climate change? Perhaps they are. Or do island communities possess unique characteristics of adaptation, mitigation and resilience, qualities which have always inevitably been features of life on islands and thus of island identity? Perhaps climate science and policy would benefit from a better understanding of the evolving relationship between identity and climate change on islands in the Anthropocene.
Anna Smith
I will be investigating the carbon capacity of Jersey’s marine habitats (mudflats, maerl beds, seagrass meadows and calciferous fauna) with the goal of quantifying its blue carbon credits. I believe blue carbon is one of the most important future conservation measures for the marine environment. Selling carbon credits is not the be all or end all of conservation, however it provides a fantastic financial basis for restoration initiatives.
Half of all sequestered oceanic carbon is stored in coastal habitats. Islands such as Jersey are therefore integral for maintaining and restoring highly diverse marine habitats which are effective in offsetting carbon emissions.
Josh Smith
The landscape of Jersey has changed drastically over the lifetime of the island’s formation (9,000-6,000 years b.p.), due to changing climates and human exploitation. A major change across Jersey’s ecosystems relates to the extirpation of large-bodied herbivores, including the extinct dwarf red deer (1/6 th the body size of its continental conspecifics) and the extinct Jersey sheep (which disappeared with the abandonment of traditional grazing practices). The loss of herbivory pressures and disturbance processes from large-bodied ungulates has led to an overdominance of certain native species.
My project aims to restore balanced herbivory and disturbance processes to Jersey’s coastland and agricultural land via the experimental introduction of a wild-type horse (Equus caballus; Exmoor breed) and sheep (Ovis aries; Manx Loughtan breed). The ambitions of the island-wide grazing strategy are to generate net carbon removal and biodiversity gains across the grazing network as a whole (dune, coastal heath, wet meadows, pastures and cropland).