Dr. Nina Bhola

Trustee

Dr. Nina Bhola is a biodiversity, conservation and policy specialist who brings experience of working with intergovernmental, governmental, non-governmental partners across the world, including leading international collaborations, managing diverse partners and supporting effective international policy processes. Nina is currently a Senior Programme Officer at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP – WCMC), where she works with a global team of experts to develop, resource and deliver a portfolio of biodiversity-related projects. While at UNEP-WCMC Nina’s achievements include leading and  successfully delivering an $8 million, multi-partner project on ‘Sustainable fisheries management and marine biodiversity conservation in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction’; participating in the United Nations Inter-governmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction in New York; leading and facilitating a panel of experts at a Conference on Ocean Governance in South Africa; and coordinating international meetings bringing together over 100s of experts to help ensure effective use of knowledge in developing the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Nina has a lifelong passion for the environment and is motivated by working in collaboration with people across the world. She brings a unique combination of science, project management and policy skills and her focus is on scaling up area-based conservation across marine and terrestrial ecosystems. She has a Ph.D. in biodiversity conservation from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Prior to this, she spent 5 years working with the World Wide Fund for Nature and as a researcher at The International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, where she designed and implemented a range of sampling techniques and monitoring surveys for counting African mammals which led to 18 peer-reviewed publications with world-renowned ecologists.

Nina is a Kenyan/Dutch national, she was born and brought up in Kenya where she spent much of her childhood travelling to nature reserves within East Africa. She enjoys spending time with her friends and family, meeting people from all walks of life, travelling and being out in nature.