A Charles Darwin University PhD candidate has won the prestigious Nature Conservancy Applied Conservation Award 2011 to help further her research into conserving some of Australia’s rare birds.
The Nature Conservancy and the Ecological Society of Australia established the award to fund a postgraduate scholarship in the field of applied conservation science. For the past three years, a grant has been awarded to support research directed towards practical conservation.
Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods’ PhD candidate Gill Ainsworth said the award, valued at $4,300, came at a crucial time and would be used to fund her final case study, which would explore the social values of the endangered Carnaby’s and Baudin’s cockatoos in south-west Western Australia.
“What is so exciting about this award is that it supports my ambition to develop a creative communications strategy for distributing my research findings,” she said.