Head of Climate Change and Biodiversity Programme, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Valerie Kapos is Head of the Climate Change and Biodiversity Programme at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The programme addresses the interactions between climate change and biodiversity, including the impacts of climate change and climate-related policies on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the contribution of ecosystems to climate change mitigation and to societal adaptation to climate change. Valerie's role includes overseeing the work of the programme's team, and working with governments, collaborators and funders to develop new projects that meet their needs.

Valerie holds a PhD in Tropical Forest Ecology from Washington University, Missouri. She spent 15 years researching in the Caribbean and Latin America, working on forest fragmentation in the Amazon rainforest, and forest water and nutrient relations in Jamaica and Venezuela. Her recent work has included assessing the evidence on ecosystem based adaptation to climate change in order to identify and encourage best practice, and working with countries to ensure that planning for REDD+ and other land uses takes into account biodiversity and ecosystem services.