Leader: David Olson

Contributed by Belinda Reyers

Name: David Olson

Job (title and organization):
Director of Science and Stewardship, Irvine Ranch Conservancy.

Where do you work (city and country):
Orange County, Southern California, USA.

Degree(s):
Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Berkeley; PhD in Zoology from the University of California, Davis

Describe your research:
We manage a good portion of the wildlands of the former Irvine Ranch. The habitats here are chaparral, oak woodland, sage scrub, native grassland, and riparian areas characteristic of Southern California. The ecosystems represented here are globally distinctive and are now quite threatened due to habitat loss and other threats. Our goals are to maintain viable populations of the full range of native species over time, to maintain representative habitats within their natural range of variation of distribution and condition, to sustain key ecological processes, and to enhance ecologic resilience to short-term disturbances and long-term change. To this end, we are involved in a range of conservation activities such as invasive species control, habitat restoration, projects aimed at maintaining connectivity within and among wildlands for larger vertebrates and communities potentially shifting with climate change, and managing human access. We have a targeted research program to support this work.

What inspires you in your work?
Biodiversity

What are the highlights of your career accomplishments? 
Sometimes it takes at least a decade or more to understand if your work has made a real difference. I hope some of my work has made a contribution at some level, but you never really know given global changes and drivers. However, I have helped establish a number of sizable protected areas, started several conservation programs in areas that really needed attention, worked on saving a number of rare species populations, and helped develop a series of conservation tools and strategies.

Why is the Global Mediterranean Action Network exciting to you?
These ecosystems share many of their biodiversity patterns, threats, and solutions and it makes sense to bring people and organizations together to solve major conservation challenges. The Network offers an excellent opportunity for this to occur.

How did your early experiences in nature influence you?
Growing up in the creek and woods behind my house and collecting beetles set me on a path towards biology. When I was 9 I wore a tree costume and faced down bulldozers over an old-growth woodland near my home. Today those woods are now a reserve and one of my favorite places to visit.

What are your favorite species and/or landscapes?
Every species and habitat around the world is interesting. Mediterranean-climate ecosystems, of course, are exceptional. At the edges of Mediterranean-climate ecosystems are extraordinary forests dominated by giant trees, such as the redwoods of California and Alerce forests of Chile. Tall-grass prairies, coral reefs, cloud forests, tropical dry forests, lowland rainforests and tropical rivers—all of these ecosystems, as well as many others, support amazing species, habitats, and ecological phenomena.

Why are you passionate about conservation?
Life on this planet is incredible and likely quite rare, and, given the trajectories of loss, I do not think I could be satisfied doing anything else other than conservation work.

What gives you hope?
I have observed a much greater awareness of conservation issues in several sectors of society, including commercial and political, over the last few decades. We also have a much better idea now of what the priority areas and key issues are and what we can must do to achieve conservation goals than we did even a few decades ago. We simply need the political will and social and economic tools to make conservation work at meaningful scales.

What activities do you enjoy in your spare time?