phoebe Meagher
phoebe Meagher
Taronga Conservation Society Australia Wildlife Conservation Officer
Dr Phoebe Meagher leads Forensic Science partnerships at Taronga, working with new technologies, industry, government and academia to develop and support tools to combat illegal wildlife trade.
Dr Meagher has worked combating illegal wildlife trade here in Australia and in South-east Asia, targeting the world’s most trafficked wildlife including Pangolins, Cockatoos, Freshwater Turtles and native Lizards.
Dr Meagher’s experience working in wildlife pathology at Taronga Wildlife Hospital led her to discover the applications of forensic techniques in conservation science and has published these novel concepts in scientific and popular literature.
In November last year, Dr Meagher travelled to Panama to present on the potential impacts of Taronga’s technology partnerships on illegal wildlife trade at UN CITES CoP19.
Dr Meagher has worked combating illegal wildlife trade here in Australia and in South-east Asia, targeting the world’s most trafficked wildlife including Pangolins, Cockatoos, Freshwater Turtles and native Lizards.
Dr Meagher’s experience working in wildlife pathology at Taronga Wildlife Hospital led her to discover the applications of forensic techniques in conservation science and has published these novel concepts in scientific and popular literature.
In November last year, Dr Meagher travelled to Panama to present on the potential impacts of Taronga’s technology partnerships on illegal wildlife trade at UN CITES CoP19.
Related Sessions
Humanity vs Technology: What Will Save Our Planet?
WED, OCT 18, 2:00 PM
Conference
Our planet is in the midst of a sixth, mass extinction event. This means humanity (yep, that’s us!) and how we live our lives, is killing of species at an unprecedented rate.
The industrial revolution and the rise of technology has led to an increasing dependence on fossil fuels and large-scale habitat destruction. This has meant, in just a few short centuries, we are close to having the same impact to our planet’s biodiversity as an asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Thousands of species are now extinct, gone forever. More than 40,000 species currently sit on the brink of imminent extinction. The UN predicts a million more could vanish within decades.
Over the past decades, the world has woken up to the impact we’ve had, and continue to have, our planet, and the wildlife we share it with.
As a global community, big, bold and desperate steps have been taken to stave off imminent extinction. Some of them have worked, but tragically others have been too little, too late.
Some will argue the solution lies in the future, looking to AI and yet-to-be-developed technologies. Others will say, we are keeping our eyes closed to traditional knowledge and techniques that have nurtured our planet for tens of thousands of years.
So, where to from here? Humanity vs. Technology – what will save our planet?