Graeme Patterson, Ph.D.

Assistant Director Africa Programs, Wildlife Conservation Society

Dr. Graeme Patterson was born and raised in the north east of England. He has a degree in Marine Botany from the University of Wales, Bangor and a Ph.D. in limnology, the study of fresh waters, from the University of Durham UK. He spent his 20's and 30's in Africa researching ancient lakes, and wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the impact of heavy metals on the ecology of upland streams He first traveled to Africa in 1983, working on a European Union educational support program at the University of Jos in Northern Nigeria to set up a M.Sc. program on landscape management and conducting and supervising research on the impact of tin mining on the Jos Plateau.

In 1987 Graeme moved to Kenya to take up a lectureship in the Botany Department at Kenyatta University, Nairobi. For three years he taught a variety of topics specializing in freshwater and marine ecology as well as teaching more general ecological-based topics, evolutionary biology and plant systematics. While in Kenya he studied the ecology of Lakes Baringo and Naivasha as well as doing some work on the mangroves and sea grass beds of the Kenya coast.

He moved from Kenyatta University to work as the limnologist/plankton ecologist on a 4-year program supported by the UK Government to study the pelagic ecology of Lake Malawi/Nyasa. The objective of this program was to understand the ecology of the main commercial fish in the lake, to build local institutional capacity to carry out management recommendations, and to continue lakewide monitoring. One aspect of the work Graeme carried out was the introduction of remote sensing to examine hydrological features and because of this he was invited by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) to produce a special publication on this aspect of the work. While conducting this short contract he contributed to NRI’s bid to UNDP to manage the 5 year GEF Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project. This bid was successful and Graeme was contracted to act as technical manager on this $10 million project.

The Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project was conducted on behalf of the four riparian states of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zambia. The main output of the project was a regionally agreed Strategic Action Program (SAP) being implemented by the Lake Tanganyika Management Committee to obtain funding for a suite of interventions. This SAP is now supported by a fully legislated regional convention as well as the technical studies of the project. This project also acted to strengthen regional institutions through training and support to inform the management committee into the future. During his time at NRI Graeme also acted as a consultant on a number of other projects. He lead the International Coral Reef Initiative S. Asia workshop, reviewed research activities in Lake Nasser, Egypt, assisted with the Lake Malawi/Nyasa GEF project (the sister to the Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project) and conducted research on the marine resources of Indonesia. Graeme has published widely on the work he has conducted – particularly on the African lakes.

At the conclusion of the first phase of the Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project, Graeme felt it was time to move on and offer his experience to a wider range of topics and approaches to African natural resources management. He arrived at WCS in January 2001 (landing first at the Africa Program meeting in Mombasa). Since then he has been working as an Assistant Director of the Africa Program with a primary focus on the MESA region (Madagascar, East and Southern Africa).