Amy’s research focuses on using interdisciplinary methods and cross-sector collaborations to understand the networks, actors and processes involved in the legal and illegal wildlife trade. She is particularly interested in how different conservation interventions affect the behaviour of consumers, traders and other actors, and whether this has any impact on the effectiveness of these interventions. For example, during her PhD she worked closely with legal and illegal traders and consumers of ornamental orchids, to understand their increasing use of various online platforms to bypass CITES regulations. Amy’s postdoc with the Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade was a collaborative project bringing together the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration and IUCN, to understand how bear bile farming in China affects the consumption of wild bear bile. In her role as the Kadas Senior Research Fellow in Conservation Geopolitics, she will be building on her work in China, to look at how China’s Belt and Road Initiative will affect the wildlife trade, particularly trade to supply expanding Traditional Chinese Medicine markets.

Amy graduated with a BSc in Natural Sciences from Durham University, an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from Oxford, and a PhD from DICE, University of Kent that focused on characterising the structure and function of online wildlife trade networks. She has also worked at Fauna & Flora International as part of the Global Trees Campaign, and at UNEP WCMC focusing on CITES Trade Database analysis. After her PhD she has continued her work on the orchid trade and is the co-chair of the IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group’s Global Trade Programme.