Jan Schipper, PhD

Jan Schipper, PhD, is the Field Conservation Research Director at the Arizona Center for Nature Conservation/Phoenix Zoo. Jan is an applied conservation and wildlife ecologist with over 20 years of research experience in Central & South America, Asia and Oceania across a wide variety of species, including a status assessment of the worlds mammals for the IUCN Red List. Jan's work has included evaluating the importance of conservation corridors for mammal dispersal and movement, impacts of traditional hunting practices on wildlife, effectiveness of protected areas at conserving species and developing conservation tools for jaguar (Panthera onca) and other area sensitive species. Recent research projects include 1) developing and implementing an anti-poaching acoustic gunshot detection system for jaguar conservation, 2) wildlife survey and monitoring in Costa Rica's Talamanca Mountains as well as along the US/MX border and 3) estimating populations of jaguar and other large mammal populations on private reserves and protected areas to explore best management practices. Jan is a member of the IUCN SSC Small Carnivore, Tapir, Cat and Lagomorph specialist groups, is on the editorial board for several journals (Small Carnivore Conservation, PeerJ) and is the founder and director of several regional nonprofit organizations in Central and South America (ProCAT, the Sierra to Sea Institute). He has been working on ecoregion based conservation projects since 2001, and has been a part of the WWF LAC Ecoregion design team as well as implementing site based ecoregion projects in the Guianas and Central America.

Many people have contributed to the ecoregion descriptions of Latin America in the Caribbean, a project that started nearly 20 years ago. We would like to especially thank contributors to the first drafts, many of which remained drafts since the projects inception. This includes Sandra Andraka, Juan Carlos Riveros Salcedo, Jon Fjeldså, Claudia Locklin, Christine Burdette Tregoning, George Powell, Sue Palminteri, Ugo D’ambrosio, Emilio Constantino, Jose F. Gonzalez Maya and many others. In order to complete and update all of the information, we are grateful to a team of students at Arizona State University who worked with Jan to revise and update the entire Neotropics. These students include Andy Martinez, Kinley Ragan, Kate Wiess, Annie Johnson, Taylor Mazzacavallo and Heather Coates.