Our Team

Tim McClanahan

Director of Science

His interdisciplinarity publications can been found in the fields of coral reef biology and ecology, marine reserves, fisheries, food webs, pollution, ecological modeling, experimental ecology, community ecology, energy and systems ecology, socio-ecological systems, climate variability, and global change ecology. ResearchGate scores him in the top 0.02% of their members in terms of publication influence. Google scholar also lists him among the top, most cited scholars in several topics. For example, he is ranked in the top 100 scientists globally using the h-index in the field of ecology and evolution. Web of Science lists him as the top 1% in the “Cross Field” category, which reflects his multi-disciplinary contributions. By total citations among topics, he is ranked 1st in small-scale fisheries, 3rd in marine ecology and social-ecological systems, and 6th in coral reefs ecology.These are unusual accolades given that he has worked outside of academia, in tropical Africa, and has been closely engaged in the practicalities of community focused adaptations in fisheries.

Historically, he has focused on the coral reef ecosystem, marine protected areas, food webs, nutrients, fisheries, climate change, resilience, and the linkages between coral reef ecosystems and the humans who depend on them. Most of his professional life living and working in Kenya, and for the last 30+ years has worked as a Senior Conservation Zoologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in Mombasa, on the east African coast. His work has focused on providing solutions to human-coral reef fisheries interaction in poor developing countries. He is currently the Director of Science for WCS Global Marine Programs.

Tim particularly enjoys interdisciplinary concepts and building teams to solve broader science and management problems. He has been engaged in the testing and application of a broad variety of ecological and social theories that are core to natural resource management. Consequently, his publications can be found under the topics of coral reef biology and ecology, marine reserves, fisheries, food webs, pollution, ecological modeling, experimental ecology, community ecology, energy and systems ecology, socio-ecological systems, climate variability, and global change ecology. He also publishes on social issues around perceptions of management, fisheries economics and trade, gender, poverty, and the governance of common property.

Nearly 30+ years ago, he saw a need to bridge the goals of the academy with the practicalities of solving contemporary social-ecological problems. These problems were most acute in the tropical nations where rising human populations, consumption, development, and biodiversity have been colliding. Solutions required broad and inclusive science, governance, and engagement with civil society. Therefore, Tim left academia to develop an applied conservation science program for coral reefs in species rich regions with the least national funding. The proposed program would need to exist financially independent of government and short-term funding and generate long-term, high quality, and objective information that addressed common concerns.

Tim proposed this program to WCS, the most academically inclined of the global conservation NGOs. Despite the proposal’s focus lying outside of WCS's historical efforts to study and preserve megafauna, WCS agreed and supported the development of a marine program, which started in Kenya and expanded to include countries throughout the Indian, Caribbean, and Pacific Ocean. The WCS global marine program now includes 8 country programs and a marine annual budget of ~$US50 million per year. Tim played a catalytic and foundational role in making decisions, fundraising, and establishing this global network, which currently includes marine science and conservation programs in Belize, Cuba, Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Fiji.