Education
Ph.D., Conservation and Environmental Management, University of Queensland
Grad Dip., Modern Languages – Vietnamese, Victoria University
Grad Cert., Environment and Development, University of Melbourne
B.Sc., Biology and Ecology, Charles Darwin University
Dr. Ashley Brooks is Re:wild’s Asia Director, leading all of Re:wild’s programs toward halting regional species extinctions, supporting regional conservation guardians, enhancing the work of regional partners and scaling up work across Re:wild’s priority landscapes in the Annamite Mountains, and the megadiverse islands of Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Mindoro and New Guinea.
Most recently, Ashley served as Restoration Director and then NCS Conservation Director for Conservation International in Asia Pacific, where he led the identification of high-quality NCS project opportunities throughout Asia Pacific. Prior to joining CI, Ashley worked for WWF International’s Tigers Alive Initiative for 8 years, where he led the program to maintain tiger landscape connectivity and minimize contact with people across the tiger’s range. Here he developed a suite of innovative strategies with local partners and governments for human-tiger conflict, landscape connectivity and smart green infrastructure, national tiger action plans, transboundary conservation, and putting people at the centre of tiger conservation. Before supporting tiger conservation, Ashley managed the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program in Papua New Guinea for Woodland Park Zoo.
Ashley’s motivation for working in species and habitat conservation has come from living across the region in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Papua New Guinea, along with hiking and cycling extensively across the region, and the realisation that it’s a very crowded space. There is a critical need now to transform the way we deliver conservation at scale and enhance our efforts to prevent the loss of universal values, as well as the natural and cultural heritage deeply embedded in each country.