Belinda Reyers

Dr Belinda Reyers "spent the first four years of her career as a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. During this time she became involved in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment project, a four-year international effort to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human wellbeing. Now at the CSIR she makes use of her experience in the fields of conservation planning and ecosystem services in a variety of conservation and development projects, including the National Grasslands Biodiversity Programme, the Wildcoast Conservation and Sustainable Development Project, South Africa's National Spatial Biodiversity Assessment and the Prince Edward Islands' Marine Protected Area design. This work has resulted in 35 peer-reviewed publications and several technical reports. She is a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, a council member of the Zoological Society of Southern Africa and sits on the South African National Biodiversity Institute's Scientific Programmes Advisory Committee. Reyers received the Department of Science and Technology's Best Emerging Young Woman Scientist award as well as the CSIR Natural Resources and the Environment, Most Promising Young Researcher award. She was also listed as one of the Mail and Guardian's '100 young South Africans you have to take to lunch'."